We, Harry Potter
by wille179
Summary: Down in the Chamber of Secrets, as Harry was dying from the basilisk venom, something awoke within his blood that began changing him, body, mind, and soul. The destruction of the horcrux in his head kicked that process in the metaphorical balls. Now, what are Harry, Harry, Harry, Harry, and Harry to do as a literal five-headed dragon? (some fluff, no bashing, not power wank.)
1. Split

A little over one month ago, the human boy by the name of Harry Potter got himself chomped on by an utterly massive snake. Three weeks ago, as he was arriving back to Privet Drive, he started hearing voices — four of them, to be specific, and all of them also claiming to be Harry Potter. Two weeks ago, he forgot which of the voices was the original. One week ago, he ran away because his body was slowly transforming into something monstrous.

And, as of three days ago, _he_ stopped existing and _we_ fully took his place.

Allow us to introduce ourselves. We are Harry James Potter, and currently, we are a literal five-headed dragon.

"Who is monologuing in our common mind?!" Blue Harry asked, not so much annoyed as curious.

"Does it matter?" Yellow Harry retorted. "It could be any of us. It could be all of us together. We're still working this whole five-connected-heads thing out, Blue."

" _Yellow isss right,"_ Green insisted. _"It would be for the bessst to figure thisss out asss fassst asss possssible."_ His tongue flicked out, giving us all the combined sensation of smell and taste. As we were currently flying, there wasn't much to smell aside from the overall smell of forest.

" _it wasn't me..."_ the soft voice of Grey Harry muttered. _"i swear i didn't do it."_

" **NOBODY WAS ACCUSING YOU, MY LITTLE GREY HEAD!"** Red Harry bellowed. **"WE ALL KNOW THAT YOU ARE THE LAST OF US TO CAUSE TROUBLE!"** Our other three heads nodded along, each one curling comfortingly around our grey head.

Our common body, acting on instincts that we were sure weren't there before our mental split and physical transformation, banked to the right and started gently gliding towards the river bank below. About half a heartbeat later, we all fully recognized the smell that had lured us in that direction: rusted metal _._ Up until our transformation, we — no, Harry-the-singular — had thought that rusted metal had no scent. Our new noses begged to differ.

In fact, almost everything smelled good nowadays. Normal food smelled better, yes, but metal also smelled good in an entirely different way. That, of course, lead us to actually tasting it. Imagine our surprise when we found that our teeth could shear through metal with ease, and that it tasted nothing like anything we'd ever eaten before, yet was as good as candy.

Rusted metal, in particular, was extra tasty; it was like a sugar coating on a cookie, except not sweet. And as we descended, we found a great, big hunk of rusted metal. Once upon a time, it had been a car but now it was just the engine and body, partially submerged in the river.

We landed, checked that we were decently alone, and then ravenously dug into the automobile's frame. Teeth gnashing, claws shredding, jaws chewing — it was a sight to behold. And, having five heads on long necks, we could actually watch ourselves feast.

"Wicked! The tank still has some petrol left in it!" Yellow exclaimed, prying the tank free. Clamping his jaws around it, he hoisted it up using just the muscles in his neck and started drinking. We were all treated to that wonderful flavor and the invigorating feeling of the fuel entering our furnace of a stomach. Then, when the fuel was exhausted, Yellow chomped down on the tank itself, devouring the plastic with as much gusto as the rest of us ate at the metal.

We were _always_ hungry, nowadays. During the first parts of the transformation, when we still looked mostly like a human, we'd tried to just hide it. It was our appetite that did us in. The more we ate, the bigger we got, and the bigger we were, the more we needed to eat. Two days ago, we were about the size of a cow; now, we were big enough to eat a cow and not feel completely full. Tomorrow, we'd probably be big enough to eat more than one.

"We have a point," Blue remarked, pausing in his eating to comment on the shared thoughts we were having. "Our rate of growth is ridiculous. How big are we going to get? The size of a lorry? The size of a castle? A _mountain?_ And how would Hogwarts even feed us when we get that big?"

" _why would they take us back? we're nothing but a monster... we're not a wizard anymore..."_

The other three heads paused their eating, Grey's sobering words affecting all of us.

Blue and Red both looked at Grey, then each other. Both wanted to speak, but neither knew exactly what to say. Yellow merely nuzzled up to Grey, having nothing to say. Only Green found the words. _"Do we know that for sssure? Are we truly not a wizard any more? Or isss thisss sssome sssort of weird animagusss-y thing, like Professssor McGonagall turning into a cat?"_

Red grinned. **"GREEN'S RIGHT! WE MIGHT STILL BE WIZARDS! OR, A WIZARD? WHATEVER! THERE IS HOPE YET!"**

Blue nodded sagely. "Agreed, my loud compatriot. And even if we are not a wizard in the strictest of senses, is is quite clear that we are still magical. How else would we fly like this? How could we eat metal, drink petrol, and breath fire without magic?"

Green Harry hummed and slanted his head to one side. _"A thought occurssss. Remember when Dobby got usss in trouble? Well, if we do manage to cast magic, the ministry might notice. On one hand — or claw? — if we causssse enough of a racket, they might come and invessstigate. We could get the attention of ssssomeone who could help ussss."_ He paused, leaning his head the other way. _"On the other claw, we might get into actual trouble. If we are to be punissshed, I would rather be sssussspended for being a_ _ **dragon**_ _than for our own ssstupidity."_

"Agreed," Yellow declared. "To be punished for trying to get help, for trying to help ourselves, that would be embarrassing."

" **BUT TO NOT KNOW WHETHER OR NOT WE CAN STILL USE MAGIC?!"** Red roared.

"That would eat at our curiosity like nothing else," Blue stated, finishing their shared thought. The other colors of Harry Potter nodded, including the still-drooping Grey.

" _i wish we could write dumbledore..."_ Grey murmured.

"Mate, Hedwig will come back eventually. She will."

" _but what if she doesn't?"_

" **STOP MOPING, GREY! WE ARE A DRAGON! WE CAN JUST FLY TO DUMBLEDORE!"** When the other four heads turned to look at Red, he asked, **"WHAT?"**

"We can fly," Blue deadpanned. As one, we chorused, _**"WE'RE ALL IDIOTS!"**_

* * *

In our first year, we'd been so excited to make a new friend that we'd spent the whole trip engrossed in our conversation with Ron, unaware of just how many miles we'd covered. During our second year, we'd taken the flying car, which didn't exactly give a good sense of distance either.

It took a _very_ long time, let us tell you. Four days, to be specific. Sure, we could fly pretty fast, but we got tired easily. Each day was definitely better than the day before, but we could never make it that far before we had to stop to rest and, more importantly, _eat._ Merlin, we ate a lot — mostly rocks (bland) and trees (gross), but we caught animals when we could.

Our new instincts helped a lot with the actual _how_ of hunting, but nothing could have prepared us for seeing that deer splatter under the force of our claw swipe. It was a little hard to swallow — literally; it tasted great, but we kept wanting to gag as the mental imagery plagued us.

"Definitely sticking with rabbits and foxes for now," Blue muttered after we'd finished the carcass off. He had a point, too; we could swallow anything smaller than a medium-sized dog in a single bite now. It wasn't any more filling than a single human-sized bite was for a normal person, and perhaps it was even _less_ filling. It was, however, our only option in terms of meat that didn't involve splatter or setting parts of the forest on fire.

By the time we'd made it to Hogwarts, we'd practically doubled in size. Proportionally, however, we were looking rather slim; whatever we'd been eating, it wasn't enough. Not by a long shot.

" _There are giant ssspidersss in the forbidden foressst,"_ Green mused, though there was a decidedly mean tone to his hissing voice.

"They _did_ try to eat us," Blue agreed, bobbing his long head.

" **LET'S SQUISH THOSE SPIDERS!"** Red roared.

Yellow rolled his eyes. "Why don't we ask Hagrid first?"

Red, Green, and Blue glared at yellow, while Grey snorted disdainfully. They knew Hagrid; he'd _never_ consent to that. _Ever_.

"Right. Forget I suggested that."

" _Let'sss get to the cassstle now. I don't really want to ssspend any more time outssside than we have to,"_ Green declared. At his declaration, the consensus driving our body shifted, allowing him to walk us towards the castle on the hill. _"And if Dumbledore can turn usss back, I'd rather eat asss a human."_

"True." **"DEFINITELY."** "Agreed." _"allright, i guess."_

Then Blue cocked his head to the side. If he'd been driving us, we would have stopped. As it was, we just slowed. "Does this mean we go back to having only one head? Do we all get crammed in there? Who drives? Or do we just go back to being _just_ the single Harry? And if so, what happens to the rest of us?"

We came to a stop. Our other heads looked at each other. No answer came forth.

"I'm just saying, if it comes down to it, I don't want to die."

" **NONE OF US WANT TO DIE, YOU MORBID PRAT!"** Red rumbled, voicing our collective displeasure on the thought.

"I mean, I knew we were all on the same page there," Blue snapped defensively. "It just had to be said."

"None of us are going to die," Yellow stated firmly. "I won't allow it."

" _i sometimes want to die..."_ Gray mumbled.

" _ **NOBODY ASKED YOU!"**_ the rest of us shouted.

" _i'll be quiet now. i'm sorry i said anything..."_

We started walking again. The castle was getting close now, and though we were more than a little tired and hungry at this point, we spread our wings and took to the air for the last little stretch. Though, at the last moment, at the nudge of a half-formed idea from Green (an idea not spoken but shared directly with our consensus), we adjusted course.

Four solid thuds signaled our arrival at Hagrid's hut. If anyone was going to be friendly-on-site with us, it was the massive Gamekeeper. After all, he _had_ wanted to care for a dragon of his own; if anyone would help us, it was him.

"Hey, Hagrid!" Blue shouted. Of the five of us, he still had a voice that sounded reasonably close to our human voice, though _much_ louder. "Are you in there?" There was smoke coming from his chimney, so we'd assumed he was.

Sure enough, the door to the hut rattled, then opened. Hagrid froze for an instant. "Blimey, yer a beauty."

All five of my heads cocked to the side. "Uh, thanks?"

"And ye can talk too!"

Blue shook his head. "Hagrid, it's me, Harry Potter." All five of our heads angled themselves to highlight the same lightning bolt mark on each, directly above each of our right eyes. Our eye color and that scar were the only things we had left of our human form. "We got turned into a dragon."

"Harry? How in the world did you manage that?!"

"Dunno. We figured coming to you wouldn't hurt, though we were hoping to see if Professor Dumbledore was here," Blue explained.

Hagrid chuckled, then sighed. "Well, the headmaster isn't here — he's always at the Ministry and overseas durin' the summer months." The gamekeeper scratched his chin. "Come to think of it, I think he's been in Australia for the past few weeks. Chief Warlock business."

"Oh. So _that's_ why Hedwig's taking so long," Yellow remarked.

" _she must be so lonely, flying over the ocean by herself. we didn't mean to make hedwig work so hard..."_

" **WHEN HEDWIG RETURNS, WE SHALL PREPARE FOR HER A FEAST OF ALL THE BACON SHE COULD EVER EAT!"** our loudest head proclaimed.

Hagrid's eyes darted between our five heads. "Err, are you _all_ Harry?"

"Yes. Yes we are. We all answer to Harry, but you may address us by color as well. I am obviously Blue, and these are Red..."

" **HI, HAGRID!"**

"...Green..."

" _Greetingssss."_

"...Yellow..."

"A pleasure."

"...and Grey."

" _why am i always last?"_

" _Becaussse, you are the pathetic head,"_ snapped Green.

"Shut up, Green! You're hurting Grey's feelings!"

" _He hurtsss hisss own feelingsss every five minutessss. Grey isss ssso depresssing."_ A puff of smoke in escaped Green's nostrils, floating in Grey's general direction.

"Ignore them," Blue instructed Hagrid. "Anyway, are any of the other professors here? As much as we like being a dragon—" **"IT IS JUST AS BRILLIANT AS YOU THINK IT IS!"** "—we really do need to get back to being human." _"Or at leassst human sssized."_ "And we broke our wand. And most of our stuff." **"AND THEN WE ATE IT BECAUSE WE WERE STARVING!"** "Oh, bloody hell, I just realized, we ate our homework." **"BWAHAHAHA!"**

"Err..." Hagrid uttered, clearly trying to wrap his head around that absolute mess of words we'd dumped on him. "I think Professors Flitwick is here, working on his charms research. And I could see about floo calin' Professor McGonagall. Why don't you wait here while I go fetch them?"

We nodded, thought the pain of our empty stomach prompted Yellow to ask, "Sorry to bother you, but do you mind if we go hunting in the forbidden forest first? We're _really_ hungry." _"And Flitwick isss rather bite-sssized. We wouldn't want to sssnap at him."_ "You're not exactly helping." _"I am explaining why it isss a bad idea to let usss go hungry!"_

Twisting around, Blue shoved his head in between Yellow and Green. "So, can we?"

Hagrid smiled. "You can, yes, but, by the looks of you, you haven't had a good cooked meal and a bath in a while. I'm sure the house elves would love to help out."

* * *

True to Hagrid's predictions, when the house elves found out what we needed, they were more than willing to provide. Of course, that was _after_ we convinced them that _no_ , we were not invading the castle and _no,_ we were not going to eat them. And, leading the forefront of the "feed the dragon" brigade was none other than Dobby, who had gotten work at the castle after human-Harry had freed him from Lord Malfoy.

We'd thought the food at Hogwarts was good before we'd become a dragon, but afterward? It was _amazing_. And we were ravenous. Whole chickens and turkeys vanished down our throat, dozens of pounds of beef and pork disappeared in single bites. At that point, we didn't care that we were eating like Dudley did (Ron's level of gluttony having been surpassed a while back); we were just _so_ hungry.

While we were eating, the bravest of the house elves came and washed the mud and grime off of us — first by magic, and then with wet cloths around the more sensitive areas of our body. It was awkward, yet, but not unpleasant. And though we highly doubted they had ever washed a dragon before, they were doing a really good job of getting the grime out of places we hadn't even known existed, let alone had dirt in them.

Being clean was a remarkable feeling.

At one point, as the flow of food started to slow, Yellow noticed that the house elves were staying back more than they had been a minute ago. "Hm? What's going on? Why are you all back there?"

The elves glanced at each other, then collectively turned to look at Dobby. Dobby swallowed and then walked towards us. "Maters Harry Potters, sirs, Dobby and the other house elves... we are glad you are enjoying our cooking, but... and please don't be mad, but we can't give you any more food."

All five of my heads froze in place. "Did... did we just eat everything in the castle?"

Dobby shook his head. "No, but we have to keep enough food for everyone else before the next delivery comes, Masters Harry Potters."

We let out a collective sigh of relief. _"at least we didn't ruin everything. sorry, dobby,"_ our depressed head muttered.

" _But we are ssstill hungry!"_ Green hissed. _'Dobby, can you bring usss junk? Garbage, ssscrap metal, broken thingsss, thingsss nobody would misssss? We can eat anything."_ The rest of us bobbed our heads in agreement.

"Oh!" squeaked another house elf, one near the back of the Great Hall. "Let us feed them the Room of Hidden things!" Almost in perfect unison, the great, big eyes of every house elf blinked. Then, with the noise of a dozen firecrackers going off, the elves popped away. Barely thirty seconds later, they returned with all sorts of interesting (and tasty) things.

Chairs, desks, books, cauldrons, wands, jewels, ink, gold, parchment, clothes — we devoured it all. We found that a lot of the enchanted things had a much better flavor, especially the stuff that the house elves said felt "dark." In fact, we one particular item, a crown or tiara-thingy, was so dark that it's flavor made us pause just to savor it.

It was _heavenly._

Then, while we were feasting on the junk — specifically a pile of busted cauldrons at the moment — Hagrid returned with our diminutive charms professor. By unspoken consensus, Blue head took the speaking role, rising above the rest of our heads. The others continued their voracious eating.

"Evening, Professor Flitwick. Sorry to intrude, but as you can see, we have a bit of a problem."

"My word, Mr. Potter, do you ever," he stated. "There are many, many questions I'm asking myself at the moment, but the one that stands out at the moment is: why are you eating cauldrons?"

" _Becaussse the elvesss ran out of ssspare food,"_ Green smugly replied. Of all of us, he was the most proud of our gluttonous appetite.

" **AND IT WOULD BE RUDE OF US TO EAT** _ **ALL**_ **THE FOOD IN HOGWARTS!"** Red roared, shaking the windows and making Hagrid and Flitwick cover their ears.

"Please, not so loud, Red."

" **ɪ ᴀᴍ sᴏʀʀʏ. ɪ ᴡɪʟʟ ᴛʀʏ ᴛᴏ ʙᴇ ᴍᴏʀᴇ ǫᴜɪᴇᴛ."**

"And so eating cauldrons and other non-food items is your solution?" We all nodded and collectively gave him a thumbs up. We then explained how we could eat just about anything. "I see. Truly, that is quite remarkable. I would love to know how that works."

"We just want to be... well, not back to _normal_. There are five of us now, and we are not sure which of us would survive going back to being the singular Harry Potter. None of us want to die," Blue explained. "But we do want some semblance of a normal, human life. We're not even sure if we can still use magic like a wizard."

"I am assuming you didn't attempt that on your own?" We told him that we hadn't, and that we'd broken our wand. "I see. Well, now that you're here, shall we give that a test?" He drew out his wand and, holding it by the tip, offered it to us. "My wand's a very agreeable fellow; it works decently for just about everyone who picks it up. We might not get spectacular results, but you have bigger problems if it doesn't work at all."

We gratefully and _very_ carefully took the wand, cradling it out of fear that the slightest twitch would snap it like our own. Immediately, we felt a surge of energy through our body, though nothing like what getting our original wand was like. Rather than an overwhelming flood of power, it was more like six rivers of power. The first, yet smallest, river went from our heart to our claws and into the wand. The other five roared down our spines from our head to our chest, where they mixed, then shot back up to our heads and our mouths.

" **WHOA!"** _"Umm..."_ "That was..." "Weird." _"i was going to say scary..."_ **"SCARY? THAT FELT GOOD!"** "Volume, Red." **"sᴏʀʀʏ."**

"Mister Potter?"

We weren't exactly listening. Under Blue's lead, we raised the wand and gave it a flick. "Lumos!" Blue exclaimed.

To our short-lived delight, light did appear at our command. _We were still wizards!_ Our delight turned to bemusement when we realized where the light was coming from: Green's mouth. _"Why isss my tongue glowing? And why can I tassst ssshiny?"_

" **I WANT TO TRY!** _ **COLOVARIA!"**_

Yellow promptly vomited red onto Green, staining his scales to match Red's.

" _Gah! What did— bloody hell, I'm hideousss! Change me back!"_

" **NOW YOU'RE A PROPER GRYFFINDOR DRAGON!"**

"Please don't make me spew even more colors."

"What the hell is going on?!" Blue demanded, hoping someone, _anyone,_ would explain.

Over the noise of the continued debate between Red and Green over the merits of red and green, respectively, Flitwick remarked, "I do believe that you're completely bypassing my wand in your casting. Do you mind if I...?" He motioned to the wand still in our claws.

We returned the wand, internally relaxing once the fragile and valuable tool was free from our grip. "Now," Flitwick instructed, "Could you try casting again? Just do everything you would do if you had the wand."

" _Colovaria!"_ Green hissed angrily. Unfortunately, the green came out of Grey's mouth, which was closed at the time. Grey spluttered and spat, trying to wipe the unexpected flavor off his now Slytherin-green tongue.

Our charms professor chuckled and waved his wand, dispelling the color-changing charms from us. "I do believe this is the most spectacular misfiring of that charm I have ever seen. On the bright side, it seems you have somehow completely surpassed the need for a wand."

" _Not completely. It was much easssier with the wand, even if we did not ussse it,"_ Green hissed.

"Is that so? Interesting. Unfortunately, I do not know enough about wandlore to explain why that might be. We should ask Mr. Ollivander when we have the chance," Flitwick replied. With a wave of his wand, he conjured a simple chair for himself, which he placed directly in front of where we were lounging.

" _We do not want to ssspeak with him,"_ Green said. _"We are hesssitant to ssspeak with anybody we don't really need too. We can cassst ssspellsss. Why bother?"_

"I can understand your hesitation, but frankly, I do not know what happened to you, nor have I even heard of anything even remotely like this," Flitwick explained. "In order to research your condition, it behooves us to know as much as possible."

" **I SAY—"** Red paused, then restarted at a lower volume. **"ɪ sᴀʏ ᴡᴇ ᴅᴏ ɪᴛ. ɪ ᴋɴᴏᴡ ᴛʜᴀᴛ ᴛʜᴇ ʀᴇsᴛ ᴏꜰ ʏᴏᴜ ᴅᴏ ɴᴏᴛ ᴡᴀɴᴛ ᴛᴏ ʟᴇᴛ ᴛᴏᴏ ᴍᴀɴʏ ᴘᴇᴏᴘʟᴇ ᴋɴᴏᴡ ᴡʜᴀᴛ ᴡᴇ ᴀʀᴇ, ʙᴜᴛ sᴏᴏɴᴇʀ ᴏʀ ʟᴀᴛᴇʀ, ᴘᴇᴏᴘʟᴇ ᴀʀᴇ ɢᴏɪɴɢ ᴛᴏ ꜰɪɴᴅ ᴏᴜᴛ. ɪꜰ ᴡᴇ ᴅᴏ ɪᴛ ɴᴏᴡ, ᴡᴇ ᴀᴛ ʟᴇᴀsᴛ ɢᴇᴛ ᴀ ʜᴇᴀᴅ sᴛᴀʀᴛ ᴏɴ ᴀɴsᴡᴇʀs."**

" _either way, this is going to end badly,"_ mumbled Grey.

"There's no rush," Professor Flitwick commented. "Think about it. Meanwhile, while we wait for Hagrid to get back with professor McGonagall—"

"I'm here!" the Scottish witch herself declared from just outside the Great Hall. "Now let's— _Sweet Merlin,_ Potter! Hagrid," — The giant entered the hall just behind her. We hadn't noticed that he'd left again after bringing Professor Flitwick. — "you failed to mention just how big he was."

"I think he's grown a few inches since I've been in the room, Minerva," Flitwick quipped, much to our surprise.

"That fast? That's faster than we were expecting."

" _We don't have much of a frame of reference,"_ Green replied. _"But what did you expect?"_

Blue chuckled. "I don't think we're going to fit into the Gryffindor tower anymore, Professor McGonagall.'

"Fitting inside is the least of my worries," she said. "I'm more concerned that you'd accidentally inhale a first year."

"And the furniture," Flitwick added. To demonstrate, he levitated one of the broken chairs brought in by the house elves in range of our mouths. Red gleefully snapped it out of the air with a wicked crunch.

"Oh my."

"Ya sure you should be feedin him that, Filius?" Hagrid asked.

" **ɪᴛ ɪs ᴀʟʟ sᴏ ᴛᴀsᴛʏ,"** Red replied instead.

"We ate a rusted car the other day," Blue added. "Not even the petrol caused us problems."

"Anyway," Flitwick began, "Harry, please help me explain to Minerva your concerns about any possible solutions we find. Then she and I can start researching a solution."

"How long do you think that will take?" we asked through Blue's mouth.

"Maybe a day, likely a week or two, and possibly never. It all depends on what we can find. And until then, you should probably stay with Hagrid, out on the edge of the forest. We can construct a hut for you to stay in."

" _Actually, I have a better idea asss to where we can sssleep."_

" _why_ _ **there**_ _, green? why?"_

" _The sssnake'sss ssstill there."_

Grey perked up ever so slightly. _"Objections withdrawn."_


	2. Dragon in the Castle

Ron Weasley had only been in Egypt for three days of the month-long Weasley family trip when the letter from Harry Potter arrived. That it was not delivered by Hedwig worried the young lad. And though the words "From Harry Potter" weren't particularly unusual, the fact that each letter was written in one of five different colors of ink was enough to make him even more curious.

After having Charlie check the letter for pranks spells — a sibling of the Weasley Twins could never be too paranoid about pranks — Ron opened it to see what was inside.

The first thing he found was the letter, but the first thing he actually paid attention to was the wizarding photograph. In it was a bloody _five-headed dragon._ Each head was a different color, while the body was a dark, almost-black grey. Huge spikes protruded from the shoulders, while a spiked tail swished in the background. Massive wings ruffled alongside the dragon's body.

But of all the things there, four things caught his eye. In order: Hagrid was standing _under_ the dragon's heads, the dragon was giving the camera a thumb's up, the dragon's heads all had eyes the same green as Harry's, and there was a white patch of scales above each right eye that looked like a lightning bolt.

"Bloody hell."

Curious beyond belief, Ron picked up the letter and started reading.

* * *

 _Hey Ron,_

 _It's Harry. Sort of. We know this doesn't look like our handwriting, but that's because we can't exactly hold a quill at the moment and are using a dicta-quill. If you haven't looked at the picture we sent yet, look at it. You'll see why._

 _Yeah. That's us. We got turned into a five-headed dragon._

 _Nobody knows how it happened. We ran away when we started transforming, and after we got wings, we flew to Hogwarts to get help. We're staying in the Chamber of Secrets (and the basilisk that almost ate us tastes delicious after being cooked in dragonfire) and Hagrid's helping to take care of us while Professor Flitwick (who took the photo) and Professor McGonagall help us find a way back._

 _The good news is that we can still use magic, so we're still technically wizards. The_ _weird_ _news is that we cast spells with our mouths now. Yeah. Magic tastes weird, by the way. The bad news is that it's looking like McGonagall and Flitwick aren't having much luck finding any sort of permanent solution, but on the upside, McGonagall thinks she might be able to invent a way to make us a reverse-animagus or something like that._

 _We're still waiting for Dumbledore to finish in Australia, so when he gets back, he might have a solution for us. We don't know yet, and we're slowly losing hope that he might. McGonagall and Flitwick were both his students, and yet even with Hogwarts's library, they're having trouble._

 _But it's not all bad. Our Red and Green heads really like being a dragon, while the rest of us (except Grey) don't really mind. Plus, we're really having fun flying with Hagrid; he's a surprisingly skilled rider and is helping us fly even further and faster than before. And even if we never go back to being_ _just_ _Harry, well, you and Hermione now have four new best friends._

 _Oh, and if we never get turned back to normal, we..._

 _A) will never have to go back to the Dursleys and_

 _B) can_ _eat_ _Voldemort if he ever comes back._

 _You have no idea how relaxing those two facts are. For the first time ever, summer vacation feels like an actual_ _vacation._ _It's nice._

 _Have fun in Egypt. Show the photo to everyone and let them know we're okay. And Ron? You might want to warn your mum to get started now if she's really determined to make us a new Christmas Jumper. As far as we know, we're_ _still_ _growing._

 _Take care. We'll see you when you get back, and maybe we can go flying if your mum and dad let us. Trust me, it's brilliant._

 _Your friends,_

 _Red, Blue, Green, Yellow, and Grey._

 _We, Harry Potter._

 _P.S. We will never, ever complain about your eating habits again. We're now more of a pig than you are._

 _P.P.S. Yes, we sent a letter to Hermione too._

 _P.P.P.S. If you could have Charlie take a look, that would be great. We're still trying to figure out what kind of dragon we are._

 _P.P.P.P.S. (We swear this is the last one) we hope Ginny is doing well and that she's not having nightmares or anything. We know we did the first few nights after fighting the snake. Give her a hug for us, okay?_

* * *

"Whatcha got there, Ronniekins?" Fred asked.

"A letter from Harry, by the looks of it." George replied, picking up the envelope. "What's it say?"

"Umm..." Ron handed his brothers the photo, which Fred took while George looked over his twin's shoulder. "Apparently, Harry got himself turned into a five-headed dragon."

"No way!"

"Wicked!"

"That has got to be—"

"—the coolest thing we have ever seen."

"CHARLIE!" they chorused together. "You've got to see this!"

Their elder brother, who had been reading the paper, set it down. "What is it?" he asked as he stood and strolled over. The twins handed him the photo. He stared at it for a long few seconds, unspeaking. Then, "Well, that's no kind dragon I've ever seen. He's gorgeous, though Hagrid's insane for standing that close."

"Charlie, that's Harry," Ron said. He proceeded to explain the letter's contents, only to have to restart when Ginny came in, and then give up and pass the letter around when their parents, Percy, and Bill entered few seconds into his second telling. By the time the whole family knew, it had fully sunk in for Ron.

His best mate was a bloody dragon.

His best mate was apparently happy as a bloody dragon.

His best mate was now _five_ best mates.

The pureblooded wizard in Ron, as tiny of a portion of his mind as it was, cried out that this was wrong, that Harry was a monster, that everyone was going to hate him. The young child in Ron, a portion of his personality several orders of magnitude larger than the stuffy pureblood, declared that Harry was now Grade-A Wicked, and that was that.

The rest of Ron's day was filled with daydreams of flying on Harry's back and figuring out what toppings and condiments would allow Harry to eat Snape and Malfoy without getting food poisoning. Had Ron been basically anyone else, his reaction wouldn't have been nearly so accepting. And if Harry hadn't just saved his sister a month earlier, Ron would have been a tad more wary. But neither were the case, and so Ron happily accepted the change — as much as one could reasonably accept that their friend was now a dragon.

* * *

Minerva McGonagall, dressed in emerald robes of a lighter weight than what she usually wore, relaxed in a reclining chair that had been conjured by the witch herself. In her hands, she held a book written by a good friend and fellow transfiguration master, while on a conjured table, she wandlessly controlled a quill that was noting down her thoughts.

And though Filius Flitwick was doing the same thing, reclining in a conjured chair of his own while reading a different book, we mostly forgot about him against the sight of a _relaxed_ McGonagall.

"Though it might not seem like it, Mr. Potter," she'd remarked upon seeing our surprised faces, "I can relax. Indeed, I have always found it much easier to study this way."

Once our curiosity had been satisfied, McGonagall set us to work as well. She'd given us a brief overview of human transfiguration (it was a shame I'd have to wait until sixth year to get the rest of the lesson — it was interesting) plus some key terms, and then set a massive stack of books next to us. "This is basically every book Hogwarts has on human, reptilian, and cross-species transfiguration." She pointed to a second, smaller stack. "And these are books on transformative ailments. Sort through these to find which might have the slimmest chances of being helpful, and which are a waste of our time."

The first day or so had been spent rebuilding our ability to use magic; specifically, Flitwick had had us practicing making our magic come out the correct head's mouth. Once that was working, he taught us the position-lock spell, a levitation spell variant that kept something at a fixed position relative to another object. By sustaining and mentally adjusting that spell, we were able to each look at a book, pick it up, and hold it in front of our eyes without needing hands. We could even turn the pages without damaging them!

Hermione would be proud.

Professor Flitwick _was_ proud.

Since that day, Blue had had his face almost literally glued to a book at all hours of the day, every day. Green, Yellow, and Grey, while not nearly as enthusiastic about reading, also spent their time engrossed in books. Red, the only head that disliked reading altogether (or at least claimed to — we could feel him occasionally reading through the rest of our eyes), instead spent his time playing solitaire with a muggle deck of cards. Our clawed hands lay crossed in front of us, unused, while our wings basked in the sunlight and provided McGonagall and Flitwick shade.

Nothing much was happening. Six of seven people were reading out in the courtyard, enjoying the cool Scottish summer, while the seventh entertained himself silently. And yet, we, despite Red's claims of boredom (he wasn't) and Grey's eternal misery (he exaggerated), were happy.

It was nice.

* * *

Hermione Granger was lying awake in bed. It wasn't her bed, but a nice bed in a French Hotel that should have been comfortable enough for her to fall asleep immediately. Instead, her mind was racing. _Again_.

The topic on her mind was a certain multi-headed dragon. She had no idea how that transformation had come about, but that wasn't what was keeping her up. Nor was it the anxiety that had come from realizing that her friend, if he couldn't find a solution, was basically doomed to being labeled a beast in the eyes of society.

No, what was keeping her up was _envy._ It was the irrational sort of envy that one could immediately recognize the absurdity of, but couldn't squash. She knew it was ridiculous, but she was utterly envious of Professors McGonagall and Flitwick.

She prided herself on her intelligence. She loved reading and researching. And her best friend — friends — were in a situation that explicitly needed research to fix, yet _she couldn't be there for him_. Hell, when she'd found out that her professors stayed at Hogwarts over the summer to do research, she knew she would have been envious of that had everything else not happened.

She knew it was childish. She knew it was petty. And yet, Hermione Granger sulked in bed.

* * *

We wondered if they were speaking a different language. It sounded like English, but we couldn't understand a word that they were saying.

Dumbledore had arrived a half-hour ago, having been made aware of our full situation before then by international floo call, and after a quick exchange of pleasantries, had gone to work with McGonagall and Flitwick casting charm after charm at us, all in hopes of diagnosing what was wrong with us. That barrage of esoteric charms had morphed into a conversation laden with even more esoteric terms, such that we quickly got lost trying to follow along.

"Well, my boy, it seems that we still have no answer for you yet," Dumbledore eventually announced. "There are one or two more things we'd like to try, but at this point, I think you, McGonagall, and Flitwick have already exhausted what else I could do for you."

"So what now?" Blue asked for all of us.

"I, in my many years, have acquired a rather large collection of artifacts that may tell us more, some of which were created by Nicholas Flamel."

"Oh. Didn't he run out of elixir when the stone was destroyed?" Yellow asked.

"Unfortunately, he has. He and Perenelle finally passed away last December, though he did will to me some of his notes. Now that I think of it, there might be something useful among them, though I make no promises." The twinkle returned to his eyes. "On the other, better hand, while we might not know what caused your transformation, we do believe some of the solutions Minerva proposed might work for you."

" **WILL THEY HURT ANY OF US?"** Red demanded. **"BECAUSE I WILL NOT LET YOU TRY THEM IF THEY HURT MY BROTHERS."**

"They should not," Dumbledore assuaged, idly rubbing his ear from the volume of Red's voice. "But, I do have a suggestion. The sorting hat is a much more powerful tool than most realize; we can use it to better understand your minds and how they will react."

We immediately agreed to let it examine our minds. To be honest, we — mostly Blue and Green — were really curious about how we thought. And so, a few minutes later, we were lying in the Great Hall, heads roughly where the sorting normally took place, with the hat held aloft in Dumbledore's hand. There was a mirthful smile on his lips. "It's been awhile since I did this. Which of you will go first?"

" **ME!"** Red shouted, thrusting his head forward. Obliging our loudest head, Dumbledore sat the hat on his head.

"Gryffindor!" the hat shouted instantly, snapping awake.

"Hello, hat," Dumbledore greeted. "I'm afraid this isn't a sorting. Mr. Potter here has recently undergone some changes, and we need to learn how they have affected his mind. If you would?"

"Potter? This is not Potter I'm sitting on! This is by far the most Gryffindor-ish head I've ever sat upon! Even Godric himself wasn't this much of a Gryffindor! Never mind _any_ Potter that I've sat upon."

Dumbledore simply waved his hand. "Even I could have told you that. Look deeper, please."

"Alright. Hmmm... Interesting... Strange, very strange. And what's this? Wait... five, six... Six minds? No, five and a conglomerate? Oh, you named it consensus; that's fitting. Hmm... my, you're a depressing one. Clever, very clever. No, not clever? Ah. Instinct navigating chance." The hat then fell silent for a minute as it thought.

When the silence seemed like it wasn't going to end, Red asked, **"WELL?"**

"You, Mr. Potter, have the most interesting mind I have ever met. Allow me to explain something about myself before I tell you what I observed. Whenever any wizard or witch puts me on their head, I take their memories, draw upon a small amount of their magic, and use it to improve myself. Headmasters throughout the ages have worn me, allowing me to become quite skilled in not only mind magics, but soul magics as well — at least as it pertains to understanding those who wear me.

"When I look at you, I see someone who was blasted in the soul while their magic and body were both very unstable. Basilisk venom and phoenix tears would cause that instability. Now, if I'm reading the scars on your soul right, you had a brush with death, a brush close enough that _something_ left." There was an audible hitch in Dumbledore's breath, though the hat ignored it, continuing to talk and drawing back our attention. "Whatever was there wasn't part of you. I don't see traces of it affecting you up until that moment — I would have noticed it otherwise — but now that it's gone, I can see it by what it left behind.

"When the contaminant was forcefully ejected, your soul _unfolded_ in response to the _recoil_ , for lack of a better terms. Souls are not meant to unfold. Fortunately for you, young, innocent people have remarkably resilient souls that heal easily. Unfortunately, five parts of your mind independently tried to become your new center. The result is that, given that a regular mind is metaphorically shaped like a circle, your mind is shaped like a star. Five points of personality based on five archetypes — Gryffindors, Hufflepuffs, Ravenclaws, Slytherins, and your own negative self-image — all around a central, silent personality that coordinates among you. _Consensus,_ you called it. Fortunately, the human mind is already well adapted to working with multiple parts; your magic merely extended the pattern from two hemispheres to five spokes and a center.

"In summary, you five, _together in consensus,_ form Harry Potter. Each of your heads represents an aspect of yourself, one you'd be incomplete without. Take care of each other."

The hat promptly fell silent, then went back to sleep.

Dumbledore plucked the hat from Red's head. "Well, I dare say that was _far_ more informative than I anticipated. On the whole, however, I think it was very good news."

"Oh, yes. And it seems so obvious when said aloud," said Yellow.

" _The firssst time we wore it, the hat sssaid we'd do well in any houssse,"_ Green remarked. _"Now that I'm like thisss, I can sssee why it wanted me in SSSlytherin."_

" **IT IS DECIDED. WE WILL STAY LIKE THIS!"**

"Well, not _completely_ like this. Just mentally." Blue cocked his head to the side. "Though, I do wonder why we turned into a dragon. The hat's thing explained our five personalities, but not that, nor why our head colors match up with the house colors."

"Likely, the transformation was reacting to your magic, which in turn was reacting to your soul and memories." Dumbledore twirled a bit of his beard. We could see a distant look creeping onto his face as he descended further and further into thought. "Allow me to check my notes. I think I can see the beginnings of a workable solution."

* * *

The only part of the massive basilisk that was left was the skull, having been carefully picked clean of meat, then scoured lightly with flame. Everything else had long since been devoured by the five of us. The skull, we'd decided, was to be a trophy of our first (and only) heroic victory as a damsel-saving-knight.

So, naturally, Red decided to play with it and somehow managed to convince Green to wear it like a hat. And sometime in the time it took us to climb up the ravine containing the exterior entrance to the Chamber of Secrets, the two of them had decided to put on a show.

Green obviously was to play the basilisk, while Red "selflessly" volunteered to play our original human self (painted in the best light, of course). Yellow did the voices for Tom and Fawks, Blue took up the role of Narrator, and Grey (who wanted nothing to do with this) played dead.

We mean Ginny.

Grey played Ginny.

(But he may as well have been playing dead.)

" **HAGRID!"** bellowed Red as we approached his hut. The ground was cool and damp from the previous night's rain (making it squish ever so wonderfully between our toes), and the air had not yet warmed despite it being nearly eleven o'clock. Woody smoke spiraled from the chimney of Hagrid's hut, hinting at the warm fire within.

Smoke curled from our lips as well; our fire never went out, and though it usually burned hot and smokeless, when we were relaxed, the gentle plumes escaped us with every breath. Given how humid it was, those plumes were even thicker than usual.

A short moment after Red's call, the door to Hagrid's hut creaked open, revealing the nearly twelve-foot-tall man, whom we now could look down at even while on all fours. Hell, even when we were lying down on our stomach, the length of our necks were great enough that the normal positions of our heads put our eye level above his. It was quite a novel experience for all of us, Hagrid included.

The man, dressed in a red shirt and leather pants, with an apron replacing his usual leather overcoat, waved to us with an oven-mitt-clad hand. "Harry! Good ta see ya! I just made some rock cakes. Want some?"

" _Yesssssss!"_ Green cheered, deliberately extending the hiss beyond what his snakelike-lisp would have otherwise caused. Once upon a time, Harry-the-human would have reluctantly eaten the rock cake out of politeness. Now, we all legitimately enjoyed the crunchy treat — and none enjoyed it more than Green.

Hagrid smiled, disappeared back inside his cabin, and returned a second later with a tray of the still-hot rock cakes. He tossed one of them at Green, who snapped it out of the air. "Good catch."

" _Thanksss."_

"So, I imagine this here visit has something to do with that snake skull?"

"Hagrid, this is all that's left of the monster that killed Moaning Myrtle, the monster that Tom Riddle used and then framed you for." Blue grinned widely, showing off his shiny, dagger-sized and shaped teeth. "I think it would be nice trophy, don't you agree?"

"Harry...?" Hagrid asked, stunned. "You... how did you know about that?"

"Well, you know what was going on in the school last year. Things got interesting when I found Tom Riddle's diary..."

* * *

" **EN GARDE, FOUL SERPENT!"** Red bellowed. Hovering just inches in front of his mouth was a rock, transfigured to be longer and vaguely more sword-shaped. He swung it dramatically at the "basilisk" before him.

" _Hessssss!"_ Green animalistically retorted. His long neck let him convey the motions of the original basilisk quite well.

The fight that followed was long, dramatic, fast-paced, and absolutely not at all what had actually happened in the chamber. And while we're almost certain that Hagrid had picked that fact up at the very beginning, the large man was certainly enjoying the show anyway.

Suddenly, the basilisk lunged at "Harry" and "bit" him (though not really; the remaining fangs were still in the snake's skull, after all, and we didn't want to get bit a second time). Rather than stabbing through the roof of the mouth as we had done originally, "Harry" gave one final taunt and stabbed the snake through the top of his head.

" _Blah."_ Green flopped over and stuck out his (unfortunately un-forked) tongue.

" _No! My snake!"_ Yellow cried out in the most annoying rendition of Tom Riddle's voice he could muster.

" **I KNOW THE DIARY IS YOUR WEAKNESS! NOW, I DESTROY YOU TOO!"** Red pantomimed stabbing the diary.

"NOOOO! _Blah._ " Yellow flopped over, dead as a doornail, with his tongue flopped out as well. Hagrid laughed at that.

Grey, at least interested enough to stop himself from embarrassing us, popped his head up immediately. _"harry, you saved me. thank you."_ His voice came out flat and unenthusiastic, without even an attempt to make it sound like Ginny's voice.

" **ALAS, I AM DYING! GO FIND RON AND ESCAPE THIS DREADFUL PLACE! SO LONG AND FAREWELL, YOUNG GINNY WEASLEY!"**

"And then came the brilliant phoenix, Fawkes, to save our life—" "SQUAAA!" "—with his healing tears!"

Yellow, now playing Fawkes, could not cry on demand. None of us could. So he improvised. _Ach-too!_

" **DID YOU JUST SPIT ON ME, YOU PRAT?!"** the enraged Red bellowed, rising up and baring his fangs at Yellow. Intervening, the rest of us commanded our claws to wipe the glob of draconic saliva off him.

"And thus Young Voldemort was defeated, Ginny was saved, and we were set on the path to becoming a literal five-headed dragon!" Blue forcefully narrated. The silent "shut up and move on" he forcefully sent through their consensus did not go unnoticed by the others. Acting as if nothing was wrong, Blue took his bow. The others followed suit.

"Bravo!" Hagrid cheered, applauding happily. Of course, as the sole member of our audience, his clapping stopped very quickly. Still, it was nice.

" _Ssso, Hagrid. We were thinking... do you want to keep the ssskull?"_ Green inquired even as he adjusted the magic holding it in place, lifting the snake's skull off his head and setting it on the ground before us. _"It would be a nice trophy."_

"Ohoh! Thank you, Harry." Hagrid gave the skull an unsure glance. "But I don't exactly know what I'm going to do with it."

"You don't have to keep it if you don't want it." "We just thought it would give you a bit of closure." _"Maybe you could ssshow it to Moaning Myrtle. It might make her happy."_

Hagrid smiled. "You know, I think I will. She'd enjoy that."


	3. Summer Drag(s )on

Inventing a whole new sub-branch of magic was exhausting, Minerva had discovered. The notes Flitwick had provided had helped, but not nearly enough.

In regards to Harry's predicament, they had discovered two potential fixes. The first, a solution that they were reasonably certain would work, but only in the short term, was merely awaiting Dumbledore to craft an appropriate anchor for the spell. Once that was done, Harry could _hopefully_ assume a human form, though the spell would be easily broken by a simple _Finite Incantatem_.

The other option, the one she was rather certain would be their permanent solution, involved more arithmancy than she had used in a _long_ time. She'd even had to bother Septima Vector to check her work, and had to explain in the vaguest possible terms what it was even for — and that had been a pain too.

In the end, she was reasonably certain that she was ninety percent done with the development process. All that was left was some calculations to get the exact values she needed to complete the spell formula; for that, all she needed now was to wait. Above her head, a cloud of numbers made out of green mist swirled around, interacting with each other based on predefined rules. She only needed to fuel the spell and it would give her the answer in time.

But for now, she was free to relax a little. And though she didn't have enough time to truly get involved in another major task, she had the time to pick up and skim the Daily Prophet.

 **Escape from Azkaban!**

She knew that man. How could she not? A past student, a traitorous ally: Sirius Black. And he was free.

"Oh no..."

* * *

"Should we tell him?" Minerva asked.

Her friend, mentor, and headmaster shook his head. "My dear, let's not worry about that for now. Black is weak from Azkaban and without a wand. I daresay he poses no threat to Harry as the boy is now. Plus, even if Sirius did manage to track down Petunia Dursley, she would not be able to point him in our direction."

Minerva wanted to ask what had happened in regards to Harry's relatives, but didn't.

"We should allow Harry to live his childhood for now. If the situation should change for the worse, we will of course inform the boy. Until then, let's not add any additional worries to his plate." A contemplative look formed on the headmaster's face. "Also, while I am fairly certain that I know how each of his heads would react to this news, I am unsure what the consensus of those reactions would be. Predicting his behavior has become increasingly complex."

Minerva let out a soft chuckle, though with a distinctly morbid undertone to it. "I fear Red would be far too aggressive and Green would only encourage them. No force on Earth could get me to step in front of an angry, fifty ton dragon."

"Try _three hundred_ tons. His skeleton is nearly solid metal and his flesh is infused with it. Harry is deceptively heavy."

"And you've just made my point stronger," Minerva exclaimed partially in exasperation, partially in shock. "How does he even stand?!"

"Magical reinforcement."

The transfiguration professor looked at the cloud of numbers above her head, which were now working on a different problem than before. "I might have to readjust my work..."

"Take your time."

Minerva let out a long breath. "Albus, be honest with me, can this work?"

"Your project?"

She shook her head. "No. I mean caring for Harry, _especially_ if my project doesn't work. He's depleted the castle's stock twice and made a sizeable dent in that Room of Hidden Things' supply of materials. We cannot afford to feed him."

The twinkle never faded from Albus's eyes. "Minerva, I already have several potential solutions for that, if worse comes to worst. But, like with Sirius Black, I have elected not to mention them until they become relevant. Hogwarts can afford to play host to a dragon for a while longer still; we are not without resources yet."

* * *

Each flap of our wings let off a thunderous boom as we powered through the air at breakneck speeds. Our flight was faster than ever, and we had the man on our back to thank.

Giants, even half-giants, have magic reinforcing their bodies. Wizards do too, but rather than the innate defenses of giant-kind, wizard magic actively guarded them from mundane attacks and injuries. Ironically, this lead wizards to have the exact opposite perspective on that magic as giants; wizards saw their natural defenses as mere good luck while giants felt their magic as if it were a muscle in their body. And like all muscles, it could be trained.

Most giants were too stupid to think on that fact very much. Hagrid, however, was not stupid. Oh, by human standards, he was no Dumbledore, but he could think circles around giants. Now, take a man like that, give him a taste of magic, and then deny him his wand. And then, once you've done that, let him work in a job that gives him a lot of time to think and access to the best magic knowledge in the UK.

The end result? Hagrid's whole body was effectively enchanted. He was _far_ stronger and faster than he had any right to be, even considering his already massive stature. He could punch through rock, bend metal with his bare hands, and, according to him, wrestle on par with _full_ giants.

Hagrid, who had a keen sense for animals, figured out that we did exactly the same thing with our magic in our wings to fly. He taught us how to feel it and how to control it, and though we weren't very good at it yet, we were loads better at it now than before.

Which lead to where we, Hagrid included, were: flying over the Scottish Highlands at well over a hundred miles per hour. He was riding on the back of Yellow's neck, arms and legs clutched _just_ tight enough to secure him without crushing Yellow's neck — which, considering we're a dragon with a metal skeleton, meant he was holding on with enough force to snap normal bones.

" **WANT TO DO SOME STUNTS, HAGRID?!"** Red roared, his voice the only one of all of us loud enough to be heard over the wind. In response, Hagrid tapped his right hand once against Yellow's neck; _yes._ **"ALRIGHT, GET READY!"**

We dove, accelerating even faster than before. The wind threatened to rip Hagrid off, but his grip held fast. We angled one wing up and the other down, setting us spinning. Out of the mouths of every Head but Yellow's, we spewed massive jets of flame that spiraled around us as we fell towards the lake below us.

As the water approached, we stopped our spin and aimed generally towards the shoreline. We then flaired our wings extra wide to bleed off fall speed for extra lift.

We were slowing, but we weren't losing speed fast enough, and we were still falling pretty quick. We strained, pouring extra magic into our wings to help keep us aloft; it helped, but it was too little too late. We'd nearly leveled out, but our tail splashed into the water. The unexpected drag threw us off balance. We overcompensated, flipping us arse-over-teakettle into the water.

It was cold, very cold. Our internal flame tried to warm us, but all that did was make our need to breathe all the more urgent. We floundered and thrashed.

Suddenly, Grey's head breached the surface. Breathing for all of us, he gulped down some air before our shifting mass pulled him back under.

The next head that surfaced was Yellow, and thanks to Grey's breath, we'd had a moment to right ourselves. Thus, when Yellow came up, he stayed up. The other heads followed shortly.

" _that was stupid,"_ Grey grumbled as we treaded water. Despite our insane mass, we didn't sink.

"Agreed. We need to practice some more."

"Forget that! Hagrid!" Blue shouted, both reminding the rest of us and calling for the man himself.

Green plunged back into the water while Red craned his head backwards. The rest of us looked everywhere else.

"There he is!" Under Yellow's control, we started paddling to the giant. To our relief, he was conscious and treading water as well.

"That's gonna bruise in the mornin'," Hagrid grumbled. "You all alright, Harry?"

"We're fine. The water's cold."

"Downright frigid, I'll say. Odd for the summer." He swam towards us and grabbed onto one of the many spikes protruding from our body. Blue and Yellow nodded, then we all turned and swam towards shore, our wings and legs as paddles and our tail a rudder.

It didn't take terribly long to get to shore, and now that we could breathe, our fire kept us all warm during the swim. We lumbered onto shore, Hagrid sliding off as we did. Immediately, Hagrid peeled off his soaking jacket and shirt, wringing the latter out before using it to partially dry his hair and beard. He then wrung out the shirt again.

During the whole process, we got a good look at Hagrid's body. For a man in his sixties (which wasn't even that old by wizard standards), he was in extremely good shape with well defined muscles. Hell, if we'd still been human, we would have wanted a body like that. His body was such a stark contrast to the blob that was our uncle or the sick that was our aunt, and considering that that body was owned by one of the kindest people we knew...

Well, we had "big and strong" down pat, that's for certain. Though, we'd never once have thought we'd be looking up to _Hagrid_ of all people in regards to our looks. Nor had we thought we'd have been contemplating our looks all that much to begin with. Now though, Green was thinking about how looking strong could help us in the future, Red was thinking about getting a girlfriend using our hypothetical muscles to impress her, and Blue was vainly thinking about being the strongest guy in Gryffindor. Well, the strongest _human_ guy.

Yellow didn't care, of course, and Grey's self-doubt brought us back to our senses in order to deal with the matter at hand: Hagrid was freezing. Using our claws, we scooped up a bunch of the black mud into a pile and then together baked it in flame until it was glowing red-hot. "There you go, Hagrid. Warm up by that."

"Thank ya, Harry." Hagrid nodded appreciatively and sat down by the glowing stone mound. We laid down behind him, sheltering him from the cool breeze as he dried off. He leaned back against us. "You know, I always wanted a dragon. Strangely enough, this was one of the things I imagined doing with it."

"Lying against us?" Blue asked.

"Yes, but flying with you too."

Even Grey smiled a bit at that. We'd all always loved flying; flying with our friend only made it more fun.

"Hopefully we didn't hurt you too badly when we crashed."

"Nah." Hagrid chuckled. "Grawp's hurt me worse. Nothing a little time wouldn't fix."

" _Grawp?"_ "Who's that?"

"My brother. Well, half-brother. My mother left me and my dad and had a son with another giant, then abandoned Grawp because he was a runt too." Hagrid shrugged. "Grawpy and I wrestle sometimes. Occasionally, I even win."

" _Ssssomehow, that doesssn't sssurprissse usss,"_ Green chuckled.

Hagrid put his thick arms behind his head and gazed up at the fluffy clouds and crisp blue sky. "Maby one day, we could go an meet him. If you were just a normal boy, I'd be worried for yer safety among the giants. But as you are now, I think you'd be just fine."

"Do giants have their own city?" Yellow inquired.

Hagrid shook his head. "Nah. They're nomadic. They live in camps. Well, _a_ camp." He sighed. "There aren't many giants left." Our heads sank while Grey also looked away. "Now don't you worry about that, Harry. They're not gone yet."

We were silent for a bit after that. Hagrid had basically just implied that a race of people was dying off. We knew a _little_ about Giants — Lockhart was only _mostly_ useless — and what we knew wasn't flattering. Yet that was no reason to wish them gone.

Silence fell between us for a bit. Occasionally, we'd reheat the now stone mound that we'd made to continue to help Hagrid dry off, but when that wasn't happening, we just looked around and listened.

It was strange. Normally, we'd get a little bit fidgety if we didn't have something to occupy us — a bad habit we'd picked up while at Hogwarts — but right now, we were content to just sit and enjoy the world around us and the silent company of the man who was our first friend.

Our silence was only broken when Green started sniffing and then licking the black mud. "It tastes like petrol," Blue remarked upon tasting it through Green's tongue.

"Is that a good thing?" Hagrid asked. We answered by shoveling a claw-full of mud and stone into our mouths, then another, then more still.

" **WE HAVEN'T HAD GOOD PETROL IN A WHILE! CANDLE WAX IS GOOD, BUT NOT AS GOOD AS THIS!"** Red explained before shoving his face into the ground and taking a big bite out of the dirt.

Hagrid chuckled. "Blimey, I can hear your stomach churning loud as a dragon's... roar," he finished lamely, realizing mid-idiom who — and _what_ — he was talking to.

" **EVEN AS LOUD AS I AM, ONLY RON HAS A STOMACH LOUDER THAN HIS OWN VOICE!"** Red bellowed before promptly shoving more of the black mud into his mouth. We were quickly running out of what was in reach of our mouths and claws without standing up to graze around. A hole had formed in front of us and was quickly starting to fill with oily lakewater as it seeped through the mud.

"Does he now?" Hagrid asked, amused. "Anyway, enjoy your snack before we go back. Less the castle has to feed ya."

" _Oh, we will."_ "Yes, definitely." **"MMM HHHMMM!"**

* * *

After we returned from our unexpected delay, we found Professor McGonagall, Professor Flitwick, and Headmaster Dumbledore waiting for us by Hagrid's hut. We landed alongside them with a heavy thud, our feet sinking slightly into the soft earth. Hagrid hopped off my back. "Hello, everyone. Hope we didn't keep you waiting."

"Not terribly long," Dumbledore asked. His eyes lingered on Hagrid's still-bare chest, then the damp shirt and jacket slung over his shoulder. "Though I must say, it is unusual to see you without a shirt, Hagrid."

"We accidentally fell in the lake," Blue interjected in Hagrid's defense. "He was just drying off."

Dumbledore chuckled softly. "Blue, I was merely commenting, not accusing."

"It's all right, Harry," Hagrid agreed. He quickly pulled his still-damp shirt back on. "Now, what can we do for you?"

McGonagall pulled out a stone pendant on a _very_ long chain. "This is a temporary fix to Harry's present troubles. Hopefully, this should at least allow you to fit in the castle." She walked towards us. "Do you have a preference on who wears it?"

"I'll take it, Professor McGonagall." Yellow bowed his head and allowed her to string the pendant around his neck. As it slid down to our shoulders, the chain shrank until it was snug, but not uncomfortably so, against our neck.

"That is a shell-transfiguration pendant. Tap it with your claw."

We did so. Unlike other transfigurations we'd seen, there was no transition. One instant, we were a literal five-headed dragon; the next, we were a literal one-headed boy. And while our new body worked as expected, our head jerked around as each of us, disoriented as we were, fought for control. We didn't know what was going on, but we did notice when McGonagall leveled her wand at us and incanted, _"Dividerus Geminio."_

And then there were five of us again.

We looked at each other. In a circle stood five _human_ Harry Potters, each with their own body. Yet, as if we were still connected, we could share each others senses and memories. By consensus, since we couldn't immediately tell who was who, we called out our names.

"Blue."

"RED!"

"Green."

"Yellow."

"Grey..."

"We all sound alike." "Is that a bad thing?" "THIS IS GOING TO BE SO MUCH FUN!" "At leassst Red isss ssstill obviousss." "And you still hiss." "I'm already uncomfortable..." "Give it a chance, Grey."

Then, in perfect unison, we turned to McGonagall and the others. "This could work," Blue said.

"It should, assuming you don't break it," McGonagall replied. "One of the many faults of shell-transfigurations." At our curious gazes, she elaborated, "Shell-transfiguration is, in my opinion, the lesser cousin to what I teach at Hogwarts, and what Professor Dumbledore taught me: infusion-transfiguration."

Slipping into lecture mode, McGonagall continued, "Infusion is the art of injecting your magic into an object and transforming its very essence. It applies a direct, real transformation. In contrast, Shelling forms a magical shell around an object, hence the name, and then transfigures that shell. The end result is nearly the same to a nonmagical observer, but shell-transfiguration leaves the original object untouched by magic. This unfortunately means that the transformation is fragile and easily broken by hostile magic. So, Mr. Potter, if you get hit with a spell, even a simple jinx, you will rather dramatically change back."

"But you cast another spell on us," Blue observed.

"I did not; I cast a spell on the _shell_ , not on you," McGonagall corrected. "I duplicated the shell and gave each of you control over one. This is as much to protect the students around you as much as it is to help you."

"How so?"

"Think of the shells as bubbles. If you pop the bubble, the real you falls out — and squishes anyone standing too close. But, you are now spread among five bubbles in a superposition. If one pops—" Here, she fired a bright, red spell at Grey. His body vanished. Suddenly, the four remaining heads we had would sporadically twitch as Grey seemed to bounce invisibly between them. "—the rest remain."

McGonagall continued firing spells, destroying three more bodies, leaving us all crammed once more into one. "Only when the last one breaks do you reemerge." She popped the last body. With a boom and a thud, we reemerged, though not oriented in the same direction as before.

"Does it matter what order they're popped in?" Blue asked.

"Thankfully, no. As long as any one of you stays in a safe location, you and those around you will stay safe."

"Got it. So the pendant makes us human, and then you split us into separate bodies." Yellow summarized.

"No. It makes you _look_ human, _weigh_ as much as a human, and limits your strength to that of a human, but you are still, at all times, a dragon. You will still need to eat as much as one," McGonagall corrected. "That is why this is a temporary fix."

"And while we're on the subject," Dumbledore added, "the magic of that pendant has to cope with a very large target." He gave our bulk a significant look. "It will break in mere weeks if you tried to use it non-stop. Throw in its other problems, and it's best if you don't bother eating, sleeping, or taking care of your hygiene and bodily functions with the transformation active. Simply tapping the pendant will toggle the transformation, though you'll have to have one of the staff reapply the duplication each time."

"And don't you worry about that, Harry," Flitwick added. (We'd almost forgotten he was there.) "I'll make sure all the staff know the spell so that they can help you."

" **YOU GUYS ARE BRILLIANT, YOU KNOW THAT, RIGHT?! THANK YOU SO MUCH!"** Red wholeheartedly bellowed, drowning out the various thanks the rest of us gave at the same time.

"You're quite welcome," Dumbledore said.

"I'm almost certain that we can begin the process of making you into a reverse-animagus within the month." And despite the mildly pessimistic comment that followed, McGonagall's small smile didn't fade. "Harry, it will take months and a lot of hard work from you to learn this, if you even can. I promise — no, _we_ promise — that we will do all in our power to help you get back to a normal life."

Tears welled up in our eyes. _"thank you..."_ Grey's soft voice spoke. Two words, spoken at barely more than a whisper, and yet they perfectly captured the mix of emotions that we collectively were feeling.

"You are very welcome."

* * *

Though our transformation pendant (the _Form Stone,_ we'd dubbed it) sat around our neck, it was, at the moment, inactive. We were also lying belly up, sprawled across the courtyard in front of Hogwarts's main entrance. Wands were waving around us, casting charm after charm. Divination charms, specifically.

While us thought that divination was about predicting the future (it was, and that was the main use of it), any charm that primarily gave the caster information was apparently a divination charm.

Of the three wands currently casting spells at us, no two were casting the same set. Madam Pomfrey was using medical charms to examine my health in order to form a baseline. Professor Flitwick was studying the flow of my magic, something he'd said early on was quite unique. Lastly, Professor Dumbledore was studying the materials that made up my body.

The only person we'd expected to be here that wasn't, was Professor Trelawney, the divination professor that we'd have this coming school year. Considering all the divination spells everyone was using, we thought she would have been right there with them.

It was Dumbledore's examination that held our curiosity, especially Blue and Green's, the most. Our bones were adamantine, our scales were dusky mithril, and our nerves were coated in orichalcum. None of those metals existed naturally, until now. We also had a complex digestive system with two stomachs: a traditional one for organic matter and hydrocarbons (like petrol and candle wax), and another one that was a literal furnace, complete with superheated flames hot enough to liquefy tungsten that somehow didn't burn the rest of me. If Dumbledore could figure out how to make any of those materials by watching how my body made them, we could replicate the processes and use them to make money.

And money meant food.

Oh, sure, we could hunt in the forbidden forest for meat and eat rocks for metals, but we'd rather have the good stuff — cooked foods, pure metals, and all the fuel we could eat and drink. That cost money, a _lot_ of money. Up until now, we'd never really thought about what we would do when we grew up. But now, since _growing up_ was the very problem, we were starting to really consider it.

"Alright, Harry," Dumbledore said, startling us out of our thoughts and our cloud watching. "I think that's all we need from you today.

We looked about, noting that both Flitwick and Pomfrey had stepped back, and that the latter looked like she was rather interesting in being anywhere else. We rolled over, careful not to crush anyone, then stood. "Alright. We'll be in the library if you need anything. Could you...?" We tapped our form stone, both to change us and to indicate that we needed to be split again.

Dumbledore casually flicked his wand, spawning five boys into existence, each with our hair appropriately colored. Each one of us came pre-dressed in our Hogwarts uniforms (which were physically attached to these shell bodies), though the ties were also color-coded to match us. "Thanks," Blue said for us.

"Of course."

* * *

 **(A/N: Slight edit on 8/13/2017)**


	4. Arrival

There were three arrivals at Hogwarts that day, none of whom we expected. The weather, unfortunately, perfectly _disagreed_ with the mood of the first too and perfectly _agreed_ with the mood of the latter. It was a cold, wet, and gloomy day — unseasonably so, by McGonagall's claims. It wasn't storming, it was just _blech,_ gross.

By comparison, the first arrival was bright like a ray of sunshine. Blisteringly bright, like the scorching desert sun.

We were eating breakfast — Dumbledore, Hagrid, and the five of us — in the great hall when a furious screech cut through the air. The angry white blur deliberately crashed into Dumbledore, pecking and clawing at him with unholy rage.

It was Hedwig.

And, clutched in her talons was a worn, crinkled envelope that had definitely seen better days. It was, in fact, the very letter I'd sent to Dumbledore weeks ago.

When Dumbledore finally managed to extract the letter from her angry talons, he was bleeding from cuts and scrapes. "My dear girl, I am so sorry I made you fly all that way and back," Dumbledore apologized. "What an odyssey. Here..." he pushed his plate towards her. "I surrender my bacon to you."

Hedwig glared at Dumbledore, as if offended that the mere suggestion she would be appeased by bacon, took the bacon in her talons anyway, and flapped over to us. She landed on Grey's head and promptly started eating, utterly unconcerned with the fact that the last time we'd seen her, we'd only had one head.

"Hello again, Hedwig. We're so glad your safe," Yellow cooed gently. Hedwig bobbed her head before stuffing her beak with bacon. None of us were dumb enough to mention that the letter she'd carried all this way was pointless now.

" **ɪ ᴀᴍ sᴏ ʜᴀᴘᴘʏ ᴛʜᴀᴛ sʜᴇ ʀᴇᴄᴏɢɴɪᴢᴇs ᴜs! ʜᴇᴅᴡɪɢ, ʜᴇʟᴘ ʏᴏᴜʀsᴇʟꜰ ᴛᴏ ᴏᴜʀ ꜰᴏᴏᴅ ᴛᴏᴏ!"** Red cheered, managing to keep his jubilation to a mostly indoor volume in the process. He offered her a claw full of meat grabbed mostly at random, of which she nibbled at.

Grey, whose head she was standing on, was staring at himself through the rest of our eyes. _"an owl hat makes me feel fancy."_ Hedwig puffed up proudly, while the rest of us chuckled. _"i am happy you are back, hedwig."_

"Well what do you know? Hedwig got Grey to smile. Clever girl."

" _HOOO!"_ exclaimed the cheerful bird.

* * *

The second arrival came a few hours later, similarly to our great surprise. At the time, we were helping Hagrid haul logs (or whole trees in our case) to be chopped up for the common room fire places and the kitchens (according to Hagrid, real fires smelled better and made better food than magical ones). It was Dumbledore strolling down the hill that let us know something was going on.

"Afternoon, Dumbledore, sir." Hagrid let the head of his axe rest against the stump we were using as a chopping block. "What brings you out here?"

"Hagrid." The headmaster nodded in greeting. "I'm afraid I must steal Harry away from you for the afternoon."

"What's going on, Professor?" Yellow asked for us.

Dumbledore smiled merrily. "I have something of a birthday surprise for you, Harry."

" **BIRTHDAY?! WAIT, IS TODAY OUR BIRTHDAY?"** Red demanded.

"It's been a month since we got here already. Huh. We hadn't noticed," admitted our most relaxed head. He turned to Hagrid. "How time flies when you're having fun."

"Ain't that the truth," Hagrid chuckled. "Why, this has been one of the best summers I've had in a long time."

"I'm glad you all are having fun," Dumbledore said.

Only for Grey to interject, _"i'm not."_

" _Well, mossst of usss. Grey'sss jussst a downer,"_ Green sharply quipped. He motioned for Dumbledore to continue.

"Right. If you would come with me up to the castle?" said the headmaster.

"We can carry you, if you like," Blue suggested. "It' be a bit quicker."

"So long as you stay on the ground. I'm not one for heights these days," Dumbledore said, even as he was quickly moving into position for us to lift him onto our back. The bounce in his step gave away the enthusiasm he had — what Gryffindor would ever turn down a ride on the back of a friendly dragon?

Once he was firmly settled into place on the back of Red's neck, we started forward. With each lumbering step, we took care to walk as smoothly as possible, for the motions that felt "slight" to us were proportionally much larger to Dumbledore — who was also much more fragile than Hagrid. But for every one of our steps, we covered the ground of six or seven of a grown man's longest strides; thus, we made it to the castle much quicker than our aged headmaster could have done on his own.

As we entered the courtyard in front of the main entrance, we bent down to let Dumbledore slide off. "Thank you, Harry. If you all would wait here for just a moment..."

" _Of courssse."_

The headmaster disappeared into the castle, the massive doors of which were officially becoming tight. At the rate we were growing, we had maybe a week — ten days, tops — before we were too bloody huge to fit into _any_ part of the castle, save for the Chamber of Secrets (and we had probably three months before even that was too small an entrance).

Thirty seconds later, if even that, Dumbledore returned. And with him came—

" _ **RON!"**_ **"YOU'RE HERE!"** _"When did you get back?"_ "It's so good to see you!" came the cacophony of our many shouts, all directed at the red-haired boy walking out with Dumbledore.

"Bloody hell, mate! You're even bigger than I imagined!" Ron exclaimed.

"He grew," spoke another red-headed man. Not Aurthur Weasley, who had also emerged from the castle, but one of his oldest sons. "A third again the height from the photo, I'd wager."

"Charlie Weasley?" Blue hazarded a guess.

"Right you are," Charlie affirmed.

" _Hello again, Mr. Weassssley,"_ Green added, nodding in the man's direction.

"We thought you were still on vacation."

"Well, Ron wanted to come back a bit early to see you," Mr. Weasley explained, "as did Charlie. Molly and the rest are still in Egypt, and will be for the rest of the week. They'll come and visit when they get back."

" **WE LOOK FORWARD TO SEEING THEM!"** Red bellowed happily. **"NOW THE ONLY QUESTION IS: RON, CHARLIE, MR. WEASLEY, DO YOU WANT TO FLY WITH US?"**

Of course, they did.

* * *

Laughing and giddy, the three Weasleys slid off from three of our necks and straightened out their windblown hair and clothes. "That was every bit as wicked as I imagined," Ron laughed.

"Wait until you see what we can do when we don't have passengers," Blue boasted. Behind us, our tail swung happily, like a dog's, reflecting our shared pride. Even Grey was smiling a bit.

"I can't wait." He laughed a little more. Then, stamping down on his laughed, he pointed at us with a stern expression on his face. "Alright, serious question..." He paused. "What condiments would you coat Malfoy with before eating him?"

Wait, what?

"Ron!" Arthur exclaimed. "No feeding your classmates to a dragon! There's no way that Harry would—"

" **KETCHUP, AND LOTS OF IT!"** came Red's rumbling reply.

Arthur's protests died on his lips. "You wouldn't really eat one of your classmates?"

"Of course not. What do you take us for, _monsters?_ Please."

" _But we would ssswallow an enemy. It isss up to Malfoy to figure out which he isss,"_ Green hissed casually, as if he were merely discussing the weather. _"Come to think of it, it was hisss father that ssslipped Ginny the cursssed diary, back in Diagon Alley. One hasss to wonder if our freeing of Dobby wasss enough of a punishment."_

"Do keep your murder plots to yourself, Green." Blue rolled his eyes, while green stuck his tongue out at him. "And no, Mr. Weasley, we won't eat _anyone_." _For now,_ we thought but did not speak aloud. Humans smelled good, a bit like pork, and we would be lying if we hadn't thought about eating someone.

Speaking of smell, there was an odd scent coming from Ron. Not bad, just strange. We honestly couldn't figure out what we were smelling, other than the fact that it was appealing to us in the same way that garbage was now appetizing. We put it aside for now; given the conversation we were still in the middle of, bringing up their scents probably wasn't the best idea.

"Ron, what was Egypt like? They have any good food there?" Yellow asked, forcefully changing the subject.

"Yeah. They had this thing called shwarma that was pretty good. They cooked a huge chunk of meat on a giant spit, shaved it off, and served it in a wrap."

" _You had me at 'meat on a ssspit.'"_ Green licked his lips.

Blue shook his head. "Honestly, you're such a glutton, Green. Were we ever this bad when we were just Harry?" When nobody answered, Blue clarified, "That wasn't a rhetorical question. Were we a glutton as Harry? I don't think so, but maybe..."

Ron shrugged. "Well, you _did_ buy out the trolley in our first year on the train. And you could pack it away at meal times. I mean, not as much as me, but then I know I've got an insane appetite."

"Maybe it's not ass new as I thought, then," Blue mused. "Huh."

Sometime during our conversation, Charlie had pulled out a notebook and a tape measure from somewhere (perhaps he'd conjured it?). "Mind if I take some measurements of you while you're talking? I want to document you to share with the other dragonologists."

" _If you find out what kind of dragon we are, pleassse, let usss know,"_ Green said, granting him permission.

"I can say without a doubt that you're almost wholly unique." And with that, Charlie moved in to start measuring.

We turned our attention back to Ron and his father. **"TELL US MORE ABOUT EGYPT! WHAT WAS IT LIKE?! DID YOU ENJOY IT THERE?!"**

"It was brilliant, mate," Ron began. "We took an international portkey to get there, and it dumped us in this open area that had a good view of the Nile. After we got a hotel, we went exploring..."

* * *

Albus Dumbledore was finally doing something he had been neglecting for a while. Between his own never-ending duties as Headmaster, Chief Warlock, and Supreme Mugwump, his research into his newly draconic student's ailment, and his own projects, he barely had a moment to himself these days. And with how quiet the Harry Potter collective kept on the matter, it was no wonder it slipped his mind.

Yet he was here now, walking down the sidewalk of muggle Surrey in the middle of the day, his robes left behind in favor of a flamboyant, yet still muggle-worthy suit and tie. A simple shrinking charm had reduced his long beard and hair from waist-length to merely long by muggle standards, while another charm temporarily disabled the enchantment on his glasses that helped his eyes twinkle more than they naturally did.

He walked up to the door of Number Four, Privet Drive after only a few minutes of walking down the puddle-covered sidewalk, having apparated down the block and out of sight. One long, boney finger pressed the doorbell. He waited.

The locks rattled and the door opened just a crack. Petunia Dursley peeked out, her eyes searching his face, fining it familiar enough to recognize but not so familiar as to immediately draw a name. After a long moment, she said, "...Dumbledore." The door opened a little wider.

"Good afternoon, Mrs. Dursley. Might I have a brief moment of your time? It's about your nephew."

"He's not here right now," She grumbled. "And we have company. She doesn't know." Petunia gave Dumbledore a pointed look. "I'd prefer if you kept it that way. In fact, I'd prefer if you weren't here at all."

From the back of the home, a loud and rather unpleasant woman's voice hollered, "Petunia, dear, who's at the door?"

"An old acquaintance," Dumbledore replied for Petunia. "I won't be here for but a moment." The last sentence was intended for the both of them. In a quieter voice, Dumbledore said, "I am well aware that Harry is not here, and hasn't been here for nearly two months now. Fortunately, he is safe and sound."

Petunia's expression didn't really change all that much, though Dumbledore didn't need to be a legilimens to see the ever-so-slight relaxation in her eyes. "It seems young Harry has contracted a very rare, _unique,_ illness," he continued, putting emphasis on _unique_ so that Petunia would assuredly understand it to mean _magical._ "He recognized the symptoms for what they were and left to get help from the proper specialists. As of now, he's being treated to the best of our ability, and while it wouldn't be safe for him or your family if he came home just yet, he is well on his way to recovery."

"If he is contagious, then I am glad the boy had the brains to run off. Is Dudley at all at risk?"

Dumbledore shook his head. "No. Not at all. Not unless you have any _peculiar_ snakes of _unusual_ size, in which case, Harry's condition is the least of your worries."

"Snakes."

"Harry was bitten and neglected to inform any of us, having gotten ahold of the treatment himself."

"...I see." She didn't, and again, it didn't take any mind-arts for Dumbledore to see that. "And when do you expect he will be back here?"

"Not before term starts this September, and, depending on how his treatment goes, possibly not after the school year. This will be a long process."

"And how much is this going to cost?" she asked.

"Not a penny." When Petunia raised an eyebrow, Dumbledore elaborated. "He saved the life of his best friend's younger sister, falling ill in the process. He will be taken care of."

Petunia's jaw dropped a little at that. She closed it back up quickly enough, but the incredulous glint in her eyes didn't fade nearly as fast. "Well then... I expect to be kept informed of his health and when he will be returned to us."

"Of course."

There was a beat of silence.

"Thank you, Dumbledore."

She shut the door.

Messaged delivered, the headmaster turned to walk away. Though, upon sparing a quick glance back through the sidelights by the door, he saw Petunia with her back against the wall, sliding down into a sitting position. Her hands were over her mouth.

Dumbledore hesitated, then continued walking.

There were those that accused Dumbledore of being a master manipulator. That was true, sort of. He could read people well. He knew which buttons to press to get a desired result, and when that didn't work, he was skilled at improvising. It wasn't a skill he was particularly proud of. Especially now, for though Petunia had presented a cold, uncaring exterior, he knew he'd just scratched at scars in her mind that had, even now, barely healed.

It ate at him. He hated lying, even as innocently as that.

He stopped in his tracks. Faintly, surfacing from the back of his mind, came the memory of a young girl's plea-filled letter to study magic at Hogwarts with her little sister. That memory spawned a chain of thoughts that culminated in Dumbledore spinning around to return to the Dursley Household.

Unfortunately, his return to that house was interrupted when the magical pocket watch he was carrying rung, reminding him of the time and, more importantly, of the meeting he had with Cornelius Fudge in less than half an hour.

On second though, Dumbledore realized, perhaps it would be best if he asked Harry first before going through with his idea. He and his aunt hadn't exactly had the best of relationships.

* * *

The third and final arrival to Hogwarts castle came later that afternoon. We didn't see him arrive, and if it hadn't been for chance, we would not have known that the Minister of Magic was here at all; it wasn't exactly our business.

But we, including Ron, had stumbled across him. We'd been looking for Professor McGonagall to ask her how far along she was in the process of creating a reverse-animagus transformation and had been sent to the Headmaster's office at the suggestion of Professor Flitwick when we couldn't find her in her own office. Upon reaching Dumbledore's office, we'd found that the Gargoyle that normally blocked the staircase had already stepped aside. Taking that as an invitation, the six of us (we heads in our human forms) ascended the staircase, stopping to knock at the door.

Now, the thing to note here is that dragons have decently good hearing, meaning that each of us could hear that there was a conversation happening on the other side of the door. Then, the fact that there were six of us sharing our sense of hearing meant that we collectively could hear far more clearly than any of us individually. Thus, while not loud, the conversation came through rather distinctly.

" _...choice in the matter. Albus, you must see that this needs to be done."_

" _Minister, I implore you, this isn't the best solution. There are_ _ **children**_ _here. You want to expose them to dementors,"_ Dumbledore's nearly pleading voice said. Whatever dementors were, they sounded bad.

" _Albus, they will be_ _ **outside**_ _the school grounds and instructed not to come in. It will be safe — both for the students that are here and against Sirius Black! Besides, I didn't come here to argue with you on this matter; the decision has already been made, and I came here merely to inform you of it."_

" _Cornelius, I strongly advise against this. But if you will not change your mind about stationing the dementors here, then I ask you to take all possible precautions. The effects on the minds of our children could be catastrophic if anything went wrong. Imagine the outrage if a child, like Lucius's son, were to be kissed!"_

"What are they saying?" Ron asked. Green immediately shushed him.

Cornelius's voice faltered. _"I... I see what you mean. Do not worry, Albus. I shall see that that does not,_ _ **cannot**_ _happen."_

" _Thank you, Cornelius."_ Dumbledore's voice paused. _"You know, I think we might have a few eavesdroppers."_ There was a whooshing sound. The door to Dumbledore's office clicked once, then swung open. We blinked in surprise. "Harry, Ron."

"We didn't mean to eavesdrop, professor," Blue insisted.

"Oh, I'm sure you meant no harm. Come in, boys." Dumbledore gave a friendly wave, beckoning us in.

"What in the world?" the Minister asked as he laid eyes on us. His eyes darted to our scar, first on Red's head, then on every other head. "Harry Potter? Why are there _five_ of you?"

"Mr. Potter had something of an interesting delayed reaction to a mixture of exotic substances. And while we've reversed the majority of the changes, he has professed a desire to stay multiplied," Dumbledore explained.

We looked at the Minister, the same man who had sent Hagrid to Azkaban because they "had to be seen doing something." And though we could understand the sentiment, it still irked us that he'd just been chucked in prison without even a chance to defend himself. And whatever he was doing here, it was something that Dumbledore didn't like, which immediately knocked him down another peg in our book. Of course, we couldn't exactly voice our annoyance, but we _could_ pull a little prank. (Thank you, Fred and George, for the idea.)

"Hello." "Minissster." "FUDGE!" "A." "pleasure..." "To." "MEET!" "You."

All five of us promptly suck out our hands for a handshake.

"Blimey, Harry, that was worse than the twins," Ron groaned, slapping his forehead with the palm of his hand.

"The five of them are linked by a shared set of memories and a powerful connection of sympathetic magic. Despite having five bodies, they are effectively one being," Dumbledore explained. "You can see why he came to me for help."

"I'll say," the Minister agreed. He turned to look at Ron, who was in casual clothes rather than his Hogwarts uniform. "And you are...?"

"Ron Weasley. My Dad's Arthur; he works for you in the Misuse of—"

"Muggle Artifacts Office," Fudge finished. "Yes, I remember now. He's spoken of you and your siblings quite fondly."

"Now, boys, if you wouldn't mind waiting for a moment," Dumbledore said, "the Minister and I will be finished momentarily. Then I will be along to help you with whatever it is you needed."

The Minister gave a dismissive wave. "Oh, go ahead. I've said what I came here to say. I won't linger. Rest assured, Albus, I will do everything I can to ensure the safety of all your students."

"That is all I ask," Dumbledore replied.

"Then I shall be off." The Minister nodded his head, then strolled towards the small fireplace. It stretched upwards to accommodate his height. He grabbed a pinch of Floo powder and tossed it into the flame, then strolled in and vanished.

Once the man was gone, Dumbledore turned to us. "Now, how can I help you?"

"We were looking for Professor McGonagall," Ron said.

"Professor Flitwick suggested you might know where she is," Blue elaborated.

Dumbledore replied, "She is, I believe, seeking a few friends of hers to examine their own research. It seems we have hit a small snag in regards to your transformation, hence her travels to find a solution. She should be back soon enough, if you need her."

"No, that's all we really wanted to know," Yellow said.

"Professor, why was the Minister visiting?" Ron asked.

Dumbledore walked over to his desk and sat down. "Normally, Mr. Weasley, it would be rude to ask about meetings held in private," he chided. Ron blushed in embarrassment and looked away. "However, as it concerns the school as a whole, you and Harry included, I shall inform you. I suspect Harry hear heard a bit more than you did anyway."

"Dementorsss, right?" Green hissed curiously, making Ron gasp. "You sssounded upssset about them being here."

"Bloody Hell! They're sending _dementors_ here? Why!? We're not _Azkaban!_ " Ron shouted.

"No, but a man has recently escaped from Azkaban," Dumbledore explained.

"Sirius Black," several of our heads said. Dumbledore nodded. Blue continued. "Why would he come here, then? Is there something he wants?"

"You, most likely. He was a former friend of your parents, but apparently turned traitor and sold them out to Voldemort," Dumbledore explained. "Personally, I _strongly_ doubt that he would come after you — or any student in Hogwarts for that matter — but the Minister is convinced otherwise." He paused, his eyes widening slightly. Then he let out a soft sigh. "And, of course, there's the fact that he slipped by the dementors before via some unknown means — which means that the dementors are quite useless even if he _did_ desire to come here."

Ron looked a little ill at the thought. "Great, so we have a madman on the loose and useless dementors as guards. This year is going to be _brilliant,_ I just know it."

"IT WOULDN'T BE HOGWARTS WITHOUT SOMEONE TRYING TO KILL US!" Red shouted defiantly. "IF HE SHOULD TRY TO HURT US OR OUR FRIENDS, I SHALL ENJOY ROASTING HIM ALIVE!"

"And I ssshall devour hisss flesssh," Green agreed.

"You two are disgusting," Blue quipped. "Not that I'd actually stop you."

"If I could perhaps convince you to _not_ eat Sirius Black, that would be grand," Dumbledore replied. "While you may be a dragon, I'd rather you not become murderers."

"Consider it considered," Yellow replied, which did nothing to assuage Dumbledore's fears. "I, Blue, and Grey will not kill and we will definitely encourage those two to not kill as well, but no promises. We won't go looking for trouble either."

"You're quite a bit more bloodthirsty, mate," Ron remarked.

"becoming a dragon changed us," Grey muttered, his voice more sleepy than sad at the moment. "we aren't alone anymore, nor are we weak. they don't feel as pathetic as we once were... or still are..." Red grunted at Grey and crossed his arms, but didn't say anything.

"Well, as it seems I won't be able to convince the Minister," Dumbledore spoke, pulling the conversation back to the original topic, "I should warn you — especially you five — to stay far away from the dementors. I would be greatly saddened if you were to have your souls stolen for having ventured too close."

"We'll be careful," we assured him.

"Good. Now, if you would be so kind, would you please inform Hagrid the next time you see him? I wouldn't want him venturing too close either." We told him we would.


	5. Of Rats and Dragons

_A/N: Sorry this took so long. But I'm back now!_

* * *

"Dementors!" Ron half-shouted, half-grumbled. "Bloody _dementors!_ This is a bunch of dragonshite." Walking in a semicircle around him, the five of us could only vaguely nod along in half-hearted agreement. We still didn't know what dementors were anyway — they sounded bad, but we didn't exactly understand what the big deal was.

So we asked.

Ron shuddered as he formed the words in his mind. "Dementors are the worst sort of monster there are. They have an aura that makes you feel hopeless and horrible, making you go _literally_ mental if you stay near them too bloody long, and if they kiss you, they eat your soul, leaving you like a vegetable." He shuddered again, and this time, we could sympathize with that a bit more. "I've never met one, and I bloody well hope I never meet one again."

"AND THEY GUARD AZKABAN?!" Red growled. His human voice didn't do his anger justice.

"Yeah."

"Poor Hagrid," Yellow remarked. "They sent him there because of the chamber of secrets."

Ron stopped in his tracks, making Grey nearly bump into him. "Merlin's beard, I'd nearly forgotten that. Between the spiders, the basilisk, Ginny, Hermione, and now this—" He gestured to all of us. "—it slipped my mind. Hagrid's not going to be happy about this."

We, Ron included, collectively frowned. If the dementors were patrolling the grounds, then that would put Hagrid uncomfortably close to them. We, not including Ron this time, had no idea how far a dementor's aura spread. If it was wide enough, Hagrid would be miserable even when he was safe in his home.

The six of us soon arrived at Hagrid's home, where we heard voices inside. Yellow knocked on his door.

A second later, the massive man pulled the door open, revealing that Charlie was sitting in there with him. "'Ello there, Harrys, Ron."

"Hey, guys," Charlie added.

"What brings you six here?"

"Dementors," Blue began, only for Red to interject, "THE MINISTRY WANTS TO STATION DEMENTOR GUARDS AROUND HOGWARTS TO PROTECT IT FROM SIRIUS BLACK!"

"They want to _what?"_ Hagrid demanded. "What are those fools thinking?"

Behind him, Charlie muttered something under his breath that we couldn't make out. It was probably not something one would say in polite company.

Hagrid stepped aside and motioned inwards. "Alright, come in, you lot. How did you hear about this?"

* * *

What had started as a rather somber conversation about the dementors turned into a much more lighthearted one with Ron's asking of a simple question: "What happens if you set a dementor on fire with dragon fire?"

"Blimey, good question," Hagrid said. He mused, "Well, I think they'd burn just fine, or at least their robes would. Might actually make you feel warm instead."

"It definitely makes me feel warm and fuzzy just thinking about it," Charlie agreed with a grin that reminded us of the twins. It quickly faded into a more ponderous expression as he began to contemplate it seriously. "Well, I'd imagine it would depend on the dragon. The properties of dragon fire are linked to their scales. For instance, the Ukrainian Ironbelly has the thickest scales of all dragons, defending against a rival's flames with sheer mass; their flames are thus ultra-hot. Compare that to the Chinese fireball, the scales of which are much thinner but are magically resistant to flame. Their fires aren't nearly as hot, but the fireballs explode with a force proportional to how much magic is in the target. Which one would do more damage all depends on how the dementors deal with flame and magic."

"WE'D BE HAPPY TO HELP YOU TEST THAT OUT!" Red bellowed merrily.

"Red, don't go burnin the dementors," Hagrid warned. "You shouldn't be anywhere near them."

"please don't get us killed, red." Grey stared at Red, his eyes as pleading as his dour-by-default face could muster.

Red snorted and crossed his arms. "Ғɪɴᴇ!" he grumped softly. Well, softly for him; it still came out as a bellow by any human standard.

"Not that I'm suggesting you do it, Red," Ron remarked, "but seeing a dementor burn against dragon fire would be pretty cool."

"Watching dragons burn _anything_ is cool," Charlie added. He clapped his hands together and exclaimed, "Oh! What if we fed you Harrys some fireworks the twins are working on? Would you burp fireworks?"

"BWAHAHAHA! THAT WOULD BE AWESOME!" Red cheered, his good mood returning full-force. The rest of us grinned at that as well, even Grey.

"It would definitely be safer than facing a dementor," Added Blue. "We _are_ fireproof, after all."

Green aimed his head towards the open window of Hagrid's hut. _"Verdimilliousss,"_ he incanted, before opening his mouth wide. Despite being in human form, green sparks shot from Green's mouth before exploding into a larger green flare outside the hut. "Definitely fun, ssshoting fireworksss."

"Somehow," Charlie remarked, "it's even weirder seeing a _human_ shoot magic out of their mouth than a dragon."

"True," Yellow agreed, "but the novelty makes it even more entertaining. And look, we get to be our own cheering squad during quidditch."

"Professor McGonagall's still letting you play quidditch?" Charlie asked. "Ron said you were brilliant, so it would be a shame to lose you from the team."

"Err..." Blue replied, speaking for all of us, "we _think_ so? She's not said anything against us playing, and neither has Dumbledore, but maybe? Although Snape would probably accuse us of cheating because we have more eyes and can see the entire pitch at once."

"Bloody Hell..." Ron grumbled. His expression lightened a second later. "Then again, as long as only one of you was on the pitch at any one time, or you were all sharing the same body, he couldn't complain."

"That worksss," Green hissed.

"I think it would be funny to see Harry trying to catch the snitch _as a dragon_." Charlie chuckled.

"WE MIGHT JUST EAT THE SNITCH IF WE DID THAT!" Red bellowed.

"You mean eat _again,_ " Yellow corrected. Hagrid, Ron, and the other heads chuckled, while Charlie looked curious. Yellow explained, "Our first quidditch match ever, we ended up catching the snitch with our mouth."

"Damn I would have liked to have seen that," Charlie marveled. "Catching the snitch with your hands is hard enough, you know."

"Charlie was the Gryffindor Seeker up until our first year," Ron remarked.

"Are all you Weasssleysss ssso good at quidditch?" Green wondered, thinking back to last summer and watching Ron fly quite skillfully on our Nimbus 2000.

Which wouldn't happen again, now that we thought about it. We'd tried flying on it when we'd first run away, only to misjudge our strength and snap the handle, sending us falling to the ground. We didn't miss it, not when we could now fly on our own wings, but we regretted snacking on the pieces. It probably could have been fixed, and we were sure Ron would have loved it. And, since we now might be able to play Quidditch again...

Best not to mention the broom. Or any of our other lost things. Or...

"BLOODY HELL!" Red suddenly bellowed, jumping to his feet. The rest of us jumped up an instant later as his realization hit us all. "WE FORGOT THE CLOAK!"

"The cloak?" Ron asked. "Your _invisibility_ cloak? What?"

"We took our trunk from our relatives' house when we first started changing," Blue explained. "After a certain point, we started breaking everything we touched. Most of our stuff got ruined, but the cloak was fine. We hid it, the trunk, and what we didn't break in the middle of a forest! We need to go back and get it."

"It's probably ruined by now..." Grey moaned.

"I'll come with you," Charlie offered. We gave him a curious look. "Well, the _last_ time you flew to Hogwarts, you got seen by muggles." He gave Ron and us a significant look. _Right,_ the flying car incident. "Someone has to keep you hidden."

"Thanks, Charlie. You're a lifesaver," Yellow replied.

"You be careful, Harrys," Hagrid added. "I'll let Professor Dumbledore know you went to get your stuff, but you best be gettin' back here in one piece, you hear me?"

"Of courssse. Wouldn't dream of getting hurt." Green nodded for us.

With that, the seven of us (Ron included) stood and departed Hagrid's hut. A moment later, we Harrys had merged back into a singular, five-headed dragon, let Ron and Charlie mount us, and took to the skies.

* * *

Without guidance and without the strength our wings now possessed, the flight from southern England to northern Scotland had taken us four days — partially from us wandering and avoiding cities, but mostly because our wings were weak. The same journey in reverse took only a few hours.

The Point-Me spell was killer on the neck, though. At least it made actually finding our trunk possible; we'd have never found it otherwise. How were we supposed to tell one generic stretch of forest from another, especially since it had been around a month since we'd been through here?

Only when the spell was starting to yank our heads downwards did we finally start descending. By then, it was getting pretty late. The summer sun was halfway across the horizon, and that was from our elevated position; on the ground below, the shadows of night were already creeping up the valleys. One such valley, vaguely familiar now that we had a good look at it, was our destination.

There was a dancing speck of orange light coming from it. A campfire. _Great._

Red pointed it out to Charlie, who replied, "Go ahead and land near there. If they're muggles, we can just stun them and obliviate them after we get your trunk."

" **AND WHAT IF THEY ARE WIZARDS?!"**

"Be ready to close your eyes in case they lob a spell your way before I can calm them down," he replied after a moment's hesitation.

Trusting Charlie's judgment, we angled our wings to begin a spiraling descent towards the small clearing. Only, as we approached, we realized that there was a really good chance of squashing someone if we landed by the campfire. Foregoing all subtlety, Green and Blue wrapped their necks protectively around Charlie and Ron as we crashed through the nearby treetops and landed with a tremendous boom.

"Everyone alright?" Yellow asked as the debris settled.

"Bloody hell, Harry. Warn a guy next time," Ron exclaimed, sounding a bit dazed but not hurt.

"Grow up, Ron. You've taken harder falls off your broom and walked away," Charlie grunted. "Four out of ten on the landing job, Harry."

" _Assss if you could do better,"_ Green hissed in mock annoyance.

We helped Charlie and Ron down. Then, since we no longer needed to be _quite_ so massive, we activated our form stone and shrank down to a singular, human body. While Consensus controlled our body easily enough, the five of us were forced to wrestle for control over our face, causing it to jerk around uncomfortably.

Despite our rather confined state, we set off towards the campfire. The Weasley brothers held their wands up while we — or more accurately, Red — kept alert and ready to cast a spell.

We entered the clearing, only to find it deserted. There was a burning campfire with two skewered rabbits roasting over it, as well as a tarp draped over a couple branches like a makeshift tent, but other than that, it was devoid of signs of human habitation. It certainly looked far sparser than any camp we'd imagined (though we really didn't know what a campsite was supposed to look like).

There was, however, an unfamiliar scent. It was a bizarre blending of dog and man that we really didn't know what to make of it. That combination niggled something in the back of our mind, something recent, but we couldn't put our claw on it.

Whoever — or whatever — was making that scent, they were still close. Not _in_ the clearing, but they had been only a few moments ago. Perhaps we'd scared them off?

"Nobody's here," Ron remarked.

We pointed in the direction the scent was the strongest, which, not coincidentally, was directly opposite the side of the camp where we'd landed. "They went that way. I bet they're still close enough to hear us," Blue remarked. Red took over. "HELLO?! WE'RE SORRY FOR SCARING YOU! WE JUST CAME TO GET THE STUFF I HID HERE!"

The bushes nearby rustled a bit. Out popped an incredibly mangy dog. Black as night, with matted fur caked in dirt, the poor dog looked like it had been through the wringer. But, despite its rather feral appearance, the dog, after a small pause to look at us, trotted up to us and started licking our hand.

Yellow pulled our hand back, saying, "That tickles." But instead of pulling back completely, he set our hand on the dog's head and started scratching. It made happy noises and leaned in closer.

"Poor thing," Ron remarked. "I wonder if it belongs to the owner of the camp. He's not doing a good job of taking care of it."

The dog gave Ron a curious look, which quickly turned into a searching one. It wandered over to our friend and started sniffing him. After a few seconds, it started sticking its snouts into Ron's pockets. Ron tried to push the dog away, only for it to keep coming back. "What do you want?! I don't have anything in my pockets!"

"Maybe he smells Scabbers on you. Scabbers does smell kind of weird, after all," Blue theorized.

The dog paused, looked at us, then barked once. We furrowed our brow, an expression shared by the majority of us at the same time. "Can you understand us?"

A strange, unreadable sequence of expressions flickered across the dog's face. Settling on a neutral expression, it trotted over to the fire, laid down, and closed its eyes. It's breathing did not slow or soften. Blue silently wondered if it was actually smart but just acting dumb. "Weird dog," the rest of us muttered.

The dog snorted.

We turned our attention back to Charlie and Ron. "It's the only one we can smell around here. No other humans."

"So, what, a _dog_ started a campfire?" Ron asked bemusedly. We could only shrug.

"Let's just get your stuff and get back to Hogwarts." Charlie gazed up at the darkening sky which, while still orange, was rapidly losing color. "The flight out here took longer than I expected."

"We could always apparate back once Harry's got his trunk," Ron suggested.

Charlie's face brightened, then soured a second later. "I could do it with you, Ron, but given Harry's condition, I think we'd end up a red smear across the UK if I tried it with him."

"You guys can go ahead back to Hogwarts," Yellow said as we repositioned ourselves. "It'll be dark soon. We won't need Charlie to keep us disillusioned anymore."

Green added, "Thanksss for that, by the way."

The dog suddenly stood up and trotted back over to Ron, but stood with its gaze on Charlie. The Weasley boys paid it little mind. "Glad to help. Well, If you're sure."

Consensus made a shooing motion with our hand. "Go, we'll be fine," Blue insisted.

"Come on, then, Ron," Charlie said. He reached out and grabbed Ron's hand. He, Ron, and, strangely, the dog all vanished with a pop.

We blinked. "Did that dog just hitch a ride back to Hogwarts?"

"It smelled like McGonagall..." Grey finally said. For a second, his non-sequitur threw us for a loop, until his thoughts filled us in on what exactly he was implying.

"THAT DOG WAS AN ANIMAGUS, WASN'T IT?!" Red bellowed loudly. It was rhetorical.

"Bollocksss," Green cursed. "Let'sss get our ssstuff and get back to the cassstle quickly."

We transformed back, knocking over a few trees as we did. A few scoops of dirt later, we had our trunk once more, which looked to be in surprisingly good condition for how long it had spent in the dirt. Not _great_ condition, but it and potentially everything inside was salvageable.

After eating the cooking rabbits the dog had left behind (and the burning logs and the dirt underneath), we quickly took to the sky, trunk clutched in one set of claws. Without passengers, we were free to put even more power than usual into our wing beats. Cutting across the sky, we made the trip in our fastest time yet.

* * *

By the time we reached Hogwarts, we were cranky, starving, and utterly exhausted, and for good reason. We'd just flown almost twice the length of the UK today, at speeds that outpaced the Hogwarts Express, no less! But all of that was secondary to making sure that Ron was alright.

We landed hard in front of the castle and bellowed in unison, _**"RON!"**_ Fire erupted from each of our mouths, but none shot off more flame or bellowed louder than Grey.

Charging at the castle door (and only remembering to change back to human at the last second), we bolted through the front door, trunk abandoned behind us. We shot up the Grand Staircase, only to freeze in place. We each wanted to search different places — the Great Hall, the Infirmary, the Gryffindor dorms — so badly that we couldn't reach consensus. Our thoughts churned away, debating what to do with ideas and emotions, not words, while our body remained statue-stiff.

" _Aaahhh! There_ you are, dragon-boy." We turned our head to find Filch walking our way, Mrs. Norris trailing behind him. For as much as he was one of the more annoying — and slightly scary — parts of the school, we were actually glad to see him. "If this was a school night, it'd be detention for you." He grunted sullenly.

Alright, maybe not _glad,_ per se. "Do you know where Ron is?"

"Gryffindor tower, _where he belongs._ And if you know what's good for you, you'll be joining him as fast as you can. I don't care _what_ you are; you're still a student and I can give you detentions as soon as the school year starts. Oh, yes, that's what I'll do..."

We, quite wisely, immediately sprinted back for our trunk and then ran up to the dorms.

* * *

"Ron! Ron!" We shouted as we burst into our dorm room.

"...uuuuuhhh..." He rolled over in bed. "...wha?"

Oh, thank Merlin. He was fine. "Never mind. Go back to sleep."

"Uuhhh huh..." He rolled back.

Mentally, not literally, we four colored heads turned to glare at Grey, whose irrational fear was what had driven us into such a panic. He withered and retracted deeper into the recesses of our mind.

With the fear and anxiety gone, so went our adrenaline. Already tired, the wave of fatigue that crashed over us almost knocked us out right then and there. We barely managed to flop into bed before we were out like a light.

We dreamed of monsters — half-men, half-beast.

* * *

Poke.

Poke.

Poke.

Someone was _poking_ us.

We growled, a pleasantly bestial sound despite our currently human form.

The poking stopped. Then resumed a second later. Poke, poke, poke.

We clawed at the hand poking us. **"The next time you touch us, we will** _ **eat**_ **you."**

The hand didn't return. Instead, it's owner spoke, "Harry! Breakfast."

The five of us had never bolted upright so fast. We blinked, only fully and collectively coming to consciousness when we were halfway out the dormitory door. Glancing back, we saw Ron standing right where we'd just been.

"Come on! Breakfast. We're hungry enough to eat five cows!"

Ron shook his head and followed. "When did you get back anyway?"

"Pretty late," Yellow admitted. "Or early? It was definitely well after midnight. We got our stuff." "WHAT HAPPENED WITH THE DOG?!" Red butted in.

Ron blinked. "The dog? Oh! It ran off into the woods near Hogsmeade after Charlie accidentally brought it with us. We must have scared it or something."

"It sssmelled like an—" But Green cut himself off as a thought occurred to him, which he shared with the rest of us. _Ron_ smelled like that, but indirectly. Rat-man. _Scabbers_. We frowned. "Hang on. We want to asssk Professsser McGonagall sssomething firssst."

We jogged downstairs, any thoughts of last night's adventures and this morning's hunger momentarily shoved aside. McGonagall's office was, thankfully, not terribly far, though we did have to make a slight detour to avoid Peeves. Eventually, however, we did make it to her office. We knocked on the door.

"Yes? Come in." We opened the door and stepped through. Now that we knew what we were looking for, the cat-woman scent clinging to McGonagall was so very obvious to us. "Oh? Good morning, boys. I see you made it back safe and sound. Were your belongings unharmed?"

"We... didn't even check, to be honest. It's still in our trunk," Blue spoke. Green took over. "But we had a quessstion. Isss there a way to forccce an animagusss to change back, Professsor?"

"Hmm?" She set down the quill she'd been writing with. "Yes, there is. It's not a particularly difficult spell, at least to cast, but you have to know that a target is an animagus first and the difficulty scales with how hard the animagus is trying to resist you. Are you worried that someone will use it to force you back after you learned the process?"

Our opinions disagreed, which made our head go around in circles as we tried to nod and shake it at the same time. We stopped that and spoke, "Yesss and no. We originally came becaussse we think we figured out how to sssmell animagi, regardlessss of which form they're in. And we think Ron'sss rat, Ssscabbersss, might be one."

Yellow commented, "Perhaps they're stuck in that form." Then, Red added, "OR PERHAPS THEY'RE A CREEP!"

The pleasant smile that had been on McGonagall's lips practically apparated away, it vanished so fast. "I see. Excuse me. I'll deal with this right now. Thank you for bringing this to my attention." Upon hearing our stomach rumbled, she added, "Why don't you head on to breakfast? I'll take care of this myself — no need to starve a growing dragon, now is there?"

We nodded politely. "Thank you, Professor."


	6. A Rat in the Keep

We didn't know what sort of things our body needed to stay healthy, not exactly. Madam Pomfrey's advice was, medically speaking, was basically to always eat a wide variety of delicious flavors, since those flavors almost always corresponded to the appropriate nutrients. We had _nine_ basic tastes now, not five — sweet, sour, salty, bitter, and savory, plus metallic, combustible, magical, and earthy — which meant our meals were equally complex. Luckily for us, the five of us each had a different set of favorite flavors, meaning that five different breakfasts would give us everything we needed.

Green was a fan of sweet and salty. His breakfasts were usually the most human of ours, consisting mostly of pastries, but also of oddly salted fruits. Since we'd gotten the amulet, he'd taken to eating in the Great hall while we were split up, and though his portions were huge by human standards, they were small compared to what we normally ate.

Red liked savory and combustible. Fatty meat was his favorite, but he liked chicken dipped in petrol as well, when he wasn't munching on beef and candles. With the number of sheep and cows (and acromantulas, not that we'd ever tell Hagrid that), we were munching through each day, Red's contributions actually made up the bulk of our diet.

Yellow was a fan of sour and magical. More fruit for him, usually citrus fruits, but his real joy was eating random items that had been enchanted. His go-to enchantment was the color-changing charm, which he used as liberally as Green salted his food, but Yellow always claimed that things enchanted by others were the best — especially lemons enchanted by the house-elves to burst into a flame if swallowed.

Blue disliked most food but _loved_ rusty metal, which had a superb mix of earthy and metallic flavors. If he couldn't get our claws on rusty iron, then he settled for gold, silver, bronze, and gemstones — which made him _by far_ the most expensive head to feed, since he literally ate money. Usually, however, he satisfied himself with dirt and stone.

Grey was the only one of us who liked bitter things. He drank coffee by the gallon, preferring that over any solid food. He also liked the smell and taste of potions, strangely enough, which made us wonder if he'd actually find Snape delicious.

Snape wasn't in tasting range, thankfully. The only thing as bitter as Snape ( _ha!_ ) that we had on hand was the newspaper. Grey really liked the taste of the ink, though he at least let us read the paper before eating it.

" _oh, fudge called yet another emergency press conference,"_ Grey noted.

"More about Sirius Black?"

" _no."_ Our depressed head paused, his eyes skimming the Daily Prophet article again. It was short enough that the paper it covered had a smaller area than even one of Grey's huge eyes, so it didn't take long for him to read it. _"actually, i don't see why. the article just rambles worse than we do a potions essay. it had no point. kind of like us."_

Ignoring Grey's insult to the rest of us, Blue took the paper for himself. After a few seconds of reading, he asked, "Huh. Is that even _slightly_ normal?"

We collectively shrugged, then resumed eating with gusto — Grey disposing of the paper down his gullet. We were still a growing dragon, after all.

* * *

When all the food was gone (which was about five minutes later), we had nothing left to distract us. Ron still hadn't come down, and neither had McGonagall. Considering that there might have been an animagus that may or may not have been stuck as Scabbers, their absence was just a touch more worrying than usual.

So, with our meal finished, we activated our Form Stone and once more became a one-headed little boy. Setting off at a brisk jog (which, sadly, was much slower than even a casual stroll as a dragon), we headed back up the many flights of stairs to the Gryffindor dorms.

But there was a commotion. Lots of voices — paintings — shouting. When we were a few feet away, the Fat Lady's portrait swung open, revealing Professor McGonagall and Ron. She had her hand on the back of her head, and when she pulled it away, it came away slightly bloody. She hissed.

Then the scent of blood hit our nose.

Our train of thought ripped itself in half. Blue and Red thought, **'HOLY SHITE! THAT SMELLS AMAZING!'** Conversely, yellow and Green thought, _'Holy Ssshite! They're hurt!'_ And Grey, caught in the middle, screamed incoherently in his section of our mind.

Yellow seized total control of our body. "Professor McGonagall! What happened?!"

She winced a little bit and wobbled unsteadily. "You were right. The rat _was_ an animagus. He attacked us."

"And erased parts of our memories!" Ron growled as he moved to help stabilize McGonagall.

Five different rumbling growls escaped our throat, our anger partially overcoming the transfiguration. _**"GET TO THE HOSSSPITAL WING. WE'LL TAKE CARE OF THISSSS,"**_ we snarled.

"Potter, no!" McGonagall snapped, her Scottish accent thickening noticeably. "I've already told the paintings to pass the word on. That Rat _will_ be found. But I will not have you running off like a bloody fool _again!_ This is _my_ problem."

Green felt that she hadn't meant to add that last bit, but approved of the sentiment. In bowing out, Green partially quenched the inferno of rage violently burning in our chest. "Then we're sticking with you — now _and_ when you deal with Scabbers."

McGonagall nodded, then winced. "Better, Potter."

* * *

Madam Pomfrey, I'm _fine,_ " Ron insisted. He fidgeted about, but the sticking charm securing his legs to the hospital bed didn't budge.

"Perhaps physically, but you were attacked and had parts of your memory erased! I have to check that you weren't cursed in the time you forgot _and_ that your attacker didn't melt something important in your brain!" the matron quipped, even as diagnostic spell after diagnostic spell flew out of her wand.

Ron _humphed_ and crossed his arms. In the bed next to him, McGonagall rolled her eyes a bit — though who she was rolling her eyes at eluded us. She wasn't bleeding anymore, her shallow, mundane wound having been healed and cleaned up with only two expertly-cast spells, but she was awaiting the same battery of tests that Ron was going through. Without her wand, she couldn't check herself.

"Mr. Weasley, this is for your own good."

"I feel fine," he insisted.

"It's my job to make sure!"

Whatever Ron was going to say next was interrupted by a banshee shot out of a cannon. Err... we mean Mrs. Weasley bursting into the hospital wing so hard that the door slammed open and wailing as she ran to her son. She enveloped Ron in the biggest, tightest hug we'd ever seen.

A spike of envy stabbed Grey's portion of our heart. Red wordlessly shoved the feeling away from the consensus and back into Grey alone. The lingering guilt, however, wasn't so easily shoved aside.

But as the hug subsided, Mrs. Weasley's anger came out in full force. "Mortal peril! That's the second time this year that it's said you've been in mortal peril! And now you're in the hospital wing!"

As Ron argued with his mother — and Madam Pomfrey — that he was fine, Blue mentally turned to the rest of us and thought, 'The _second_ time?'

' _Maybe the Chamber doesssn't count,'_ Green suggested.

'You'd think a Basilisk roaming the school would count as mortal peril.'

' _mrs. weasley probably didn't even notice.'_

'If that were the case, it's probably the spiders she didn't notice — that was pretty late in the evening, after all.'

'But all of second year and she only notices one instance on the clock? And what about Voldemort in first year? We had classes with the man in the room!'

' **LOCKHART COUNTS AS A MORTAL PERIL!'** Red added cheekily.

' _Hear! Hear!'_ agreed Green.

The sound of our name caught our attention, pulling us out of our thoughts. Ron gestured to us while talking to his mum, and after a second, we picked up the context. He was re-telling how we'd smelled the rat and alerted Professor McGonagall.

When Mrs. Weasley noticed us watching, she waved us over. We hopped off the chair and started towards her, only for her to meet us halfway and hug us as well. It was like being wrapped in a flame, and, for an instant, we never wanted that moment to end.

"Harry, dear! Thank you! I couldn't have asked for a better friend for Ron!" She gave one last squeeze and then let us go. The cool air of the hospital wing didn't hold a candle to the warmth that lingered in our chest — not the literal flame, but that other warmth. Hell, if we'd still possessed the ability to blush, Red and Green definitely would have been blushing happily. Even Grey smiled a bit.

"Well, Mr. Weasley," Madam Pomfrey spoke, grabbing our attention, "I think it's safe to say that you're well enough to leave now. Let me know if you have any headaches or are unusually forgetful. The obliviation looks clean enough, but it's best to check up on these things when they aren't done by a professional." She tapped her wand on Ron's pants, freeing them from the sticking charm.

He immediately leaped to his feet, only for his mom to swoop in and hug him again. Mrs. Weasley looked up at Madam Pomfrey again and thanked her profusely.

Madam Pomfrey simply smiled. "Just doing my job. Though, Molly, while I have you here, how is Ginevra?"

Mrs. Weasley's smile faded a bit, but didn't leave entirely. "She's doing well. Still needs a calming draught before bed on occasion, but we're done with the dreamless sleep. Your advice really helped — I don't know what I would have done without it."

"Good," the mediwitch replied. "You can keep her on that as long as you need, though I recommend shifting down to a half dose in the weeks leading up to the start of term. Try to wean her off it so that the transition is easier."

"Of course. And again, thank you, Poppy."

"Any time." With a nod, she turned her attention towards McGonagall, who'd been patiently waiting off to the side.

Molly turned back to Ron and the five of us. "Ronald, I think that's enough excitement for one summer. Perhaps we should get you home now, and out of your professors' hair. This is their summer too." A little more sweetly, she added, "Harry — all of you — you're welcome to come to the Burrow too. We'd all be happy to have you."

"Err..." Blue began, but Ron beat us to the point.

"They'd eat us out of house and home," he snickered. "Hell, he'd probably _eat_ the house itself."

Any defense or reply we could have mustered was mangled by the fact that all five of us tried to use our mouth at the same time, which only made us look guilty. The fact that there was a distinct possibility that we might have nibbled on the house anyway was inconsequential. (After all, we'd already nibbled on some of the snake statues in the Chamber of Secrets, just to see what they'd tasted like).

Professor McGonagall chose that moment to pipe in. "Molly, as much as you and all five Harrys want them to visit, Dumbledore and I are of the strong opinion that Harry should stay here until we find a more permanent solution to his current predicament. I can't stop them from going with you, at least until term starts, but I would suggest foregoing it."

"Yeah. I think we'll pass on that," Blue spoke for us. "We wouldn't want to be a burden."

"Well, if you're sure..." She smiled. "But you're not a burden, Harry. Never think that." She hugged us again.

It was nice.

* * *

After McGonagall was released, she went off to inform Professor Dumbledore and Professor Flitwick of the full details of what had happened — most of which she herself had gotten from the paintings in the Gryffindor common room. We had a basic description of the animagus that had been masquerading as Ron's pet, but unfortunately, not a name.

Meanwhile, Ron and the five of us had gone up to the Gryffindor common room — me to get my trunk to take down to the Chamber, and Ron to pack up his stuff to head back home. As we entered our dorm, Ron glanced at his bed and shuddered. "Ugh. Can you burn my mattress?"

"Hmm?"

"Just the thought that there was some bloody old man sleeping on it _with me_ kind of grosses me out."

We stuck out our tongue. " _Blech_ , yeah. Will do."

Ron nodded. "Thanks, mate."

Packing didn't take long — Ron hadn't brought much here, and most of it was still in his trunk, rather than in the dresser by his bed. With his stuff taken care of, the six of us left the Gryffindor dorms.

Our trip down to the entrance hall passed by in comfortable silence — that sort of silence where nobody feels the need to break it because we're all just enjoying each other's company. That silence ended when we got there; Mrs. Weasley was there waiting for us, and we took that as our signal to say our final goodbyes.

"See you when term starts, Harry."

"OF COURSE, RON! THAT IS IF WE DON'T FLY DOWN TO VISIT YOU FIRST!" Red bellowed happily.

"And if we sssee the rat man, we'll be sssure not to eat hisss head," Green added, his tone metaphorically bashing Ron upside the head with the implications.

"Harry!" Mrs. Weasley exclaimed in shock.

"Misssusss Weasssley!" Green playfully replied.

She sighed. "I get enough of that from the twins. Don't you start that too."

"We don't know what you're talking about," Green "innocently" replied.

The woman sighed. "Alright, enough of that." She shook her head. "Anyway, goodbye, Harry. We'll see you soon."

* * *

After dropping our trunk off down in the Chamber (and finally verifying that everything in it had survived its time out in the woods), we made our way back up to find Dumbledore. Around us, the castle itself hummed with activity as paintings ran back and forth, carrying messages back and forth, while house elves popped around, their scents rapidly appearing and disappearing in splotchy, unconnected clouds.

The smell of rodent caught our attention. If we hadn't noticed the scent of the house elves, and thus had been paying attention to our sense of smell, we'd have missed it. With all the animals that regularly moved through Hogwarts' halls, and with what we'd been smelling specifically for several days now, the scent of a rat would have gone unremarked upon. Now, though?

It made us _hungry._

Before, we'd been too concerned with ensuring they were alright, but now that McGonagall and Ron _were_ alright, and now that there was a trail for me to follow and something we could do, the urge to hunt, to _eat_ , the one who'd attacked what was ours? It was overwhelming.

We turned to follow the trail. It was thin, made by something small moving very fast, but it was _distinct_. The cross of man and rodent made it a sharp enough of a scent that we could follow it anyway.

Jogging, we followed the trail to a corridor on the ground floor, where it went until it quite suddenly stopped. Walking around a bit, we took a moment to confirm that it did indeed stop there, and when we were sure it had, we returned there.

The trail stopped just behind a statue of a one-eyed witch. Knowing Hogwarts, Blue figured it was a pretty safe bet that this was a secret passageway. Unfortunately, there were no paintings of people here, nobody to ask what the password might have been.

"ALLOW ME!" Red bellowed. And before we could stop him, he grabbed our form stone and canceled the transfiguration on our body. Our mass exploded outwards, sending a mountain of metallic flesh crashing into _everything._ Our bulk wasn't wide enough to smash through the walls, even if we were pinned quite tightly, but the statue, which had been standing a few feet from the walls, wasn't so lucky.

We reactivate our stone, shrinking back to human size and revealing the hole under the witch statue. "THERE YOU GO!" Red boasted. "ONE SECRET PASSAGEWAY ENTRANCE!"

"You idiot!" Blue hollered. "You could have brought the castle down on us! You could have smashed through the walls!"

"BUT I DIDN'T!"

"Did you even think?!"

"OF COURSE, I DID! I KNOW EXACTLY HOW BIG WE ARE! I KNEW WE WOULD FIT!"

Blue paused, a realization dawning on him. _Of course,_ Red was vain enough to have memorized our exact dimensions. Our size and strength made him weirdly giddy every time he thought about it, and the thought of getting _bigger_ made him drool. We'd never thought that that would ever come in handy.

"Come on," Green urged. He took control of our feet and had us jump into the hole. In the rear of our collective mind, Blue sent Red a glare while Red smugly grinned back.

The passageway was a straight line, and the rat's scent was the only scent that had passed through here in a long time. With only one way forward, we sprinted as fast as we could, no longer having to worry about losing the scent trail.

Down, down the passageway went. On and on it went, and as we ran, we debated what we were going to do to the rat. Eat him, most likely. A part of us (Yellow) recognized that we'd never _seriously_ considered murdering someone before (even though we'd willingly killed Quirrell with our bare hands), but that same part of us didn't actually care.

The rat had attacked Ron and Professor McGonagall. That rat had spied on all the boys in the dormitory. This was _personal._

The smell of peppermint smashed that train of thought like a whomping willow. The ladder in front of us led up to a trap door, and as we climbed through it, the scent of candy overwhelmed us. That would have been fine, except for one _little_ problem:

The rat's trail was gone, hidden by the smell of confections.

We think this is the first time we've ever been _furious_ at a _candy store._

We stomped out of the store and into the streets of Hogsmeade. A labyrinthine maze of walls and streets, the perfect place to get lost if you were a rat. And if you were a dragon hunting said rat, well, there was really only one way to ensure that it didn't escape.

The fire within us burned furiously, but we _very carefully_ made sure that not even the slightest wisp of smoke escaped our lips. We'd been so bloody close to finding that bastard, and now...

"BOLLOCKS!" Red roared. Our human voice failed to properly convey his frustration. He wanted, _needed,_ to roar. Instead, we sat down on a short wall.

'What now?' Yellow wondered.

' _There'sss nothing we can do. Outssside of sssheer, dumb luck, we're not going to find the rat.'_ Green gave the mental equivalent of a sigh. _'I vote we explore Hogsssmeade to take our mindsss off thingsss. Thisss isss the only chanccce we might have. Not like Uncle Vernon would sssign our permisssion ssslip.'_

'He might _now_ ,' Blue thought, 'if we showed him what we really are.'

That got a chuckle out of every one of us, except Grey. He decided that now was the _perfect_ time to bring down the mood. _'we're failures. we let him get away. and we smashed that statue for nothing, so now dumbledore is going to be mad at us too.'_

"Bloody hell, Grey?! Do you _have_ to be such a killjoy?" Blue muttered aloud.

Internally, Yellow suggested, 'We could go and repair it ourselves. That would fix that problem really quickly.'

' _The houssse elvesss probably already fixed it,'_ Green chimed in. _'They fix the ssscratches we leave in the ssstone pretty quick. Thatsss the sssort of thing Dobby would love to do.'_

With only one head at the moment, we couldn't exactly turn to look at Green. Still, we think our disapproval came through quite clearly through our consensus.

' _What?'_

'Rude, Green. We shouldn't make them clean up our own messes. And just assuming that they like it?'

' _But Dobby—'_

'Is crazy and the other elves are probably scared that we'd eat them if they didn't pamper us,' Yellow retorted.

' _Fine.'_ And with that, we turned away and walked towards the castle. This time, at least, we took the scenic, above-ground route. It was definitely nicer than the dark passageway. More calming too. The last thing the professors needed was a moody, five-headed dragon to deal with.

* * *

On the other side of Honeydukes, a starving dog had been digging through the trash for anything to eat — even old candy. The human within warned that the candy would make him feel sick (at least until he transformed back), but the dog didn't care. It was too hungry at the moment to worry about almost anything else.

His rooting for candy came to a halt when the scent of rat tickled his nose. Normally, such vermin would have disgusted it, but the dog was hungry enough to eat it anyway, and the human within felt sadistic glee every time he killed one of those rodents.

Besides, it wasn't like he was killing a _person_ , now was he? The traitor was some Hogwarts' kid's pet. Any other rat was fair game.

So, when his jaws snapped around the unsuspecting rat's neck, the dog was rather painfully surprising when it changed from a live rat's neck to a dead man's. It took the dog far longer to extract his teeth from the fatty neck than he would have liked.

That time and sharp pain, however, were exactly what he needed. The pain cut through both the shock and dampened his immediate reaction to seeing his enemy dead before him. He barked only once, that small bit of joy escaping before he could clamp it back down.

With a sudden bout of clarity and rationality, the human within the dog had formulated a simple plan.

First, he shifted back. Where once a skinny, mangy dog had stood, a skinny, mangy man crouched instead. Next, he fished out the wand from the dead man's pocket. The living man didn't recognize it, but after giving it a flick and getting tolerable results, he tucked it into the loose folds of his prison robes. Shifting back (incidentally hiding the wand within his other form), he set to work on part two of his little plan.

Teeth and claws made quick work of the dead man's jacket, especially the sleeve. There, on his once-friend's forearm, was a hated symbol: the Dark Mark.

Exposed to his satisfaction. The dog started barking loudly and desperately. Whimpers and whines interlaced his loud barking, as if he were a dog in pain instead of the savage beast he was currently imagining himself to be. He wanted people to find him this time. Or rather, to find the body.

And then, just as people were approaching to investigate, he bolted. Running as fast as he could, the dog ducked into a side street and out of sight.

The instant he was sure he was unobserved, Sirius Black became human once more and, twisting on the spot, apparated under his own power for the first time in twelve years.


	7. The Growth of A Dragon

**A/N: I'm not usually one for forwards or author's notes, but I feel this one needs it.**

 **This chapter pushes the T rating just a bit, mostly in that it features a teenage boy with five pituitary glands (each of which has independently decided it's time for puberty) starting to deal with the fact that he's now got to go through** _ **five**_ **rounds of puberty** _ **at once**_ **. I'm going to try to be tasteful about this, but Harry's identities and collective maturity is the theme of this fic; I couldn't quite shy away from it, now could I? But if you're looking for hot dragon sex, you're not going to find it in this story. Sorry.**

* * *

Our muscles strained and bulged under our skin as we exerted what was, quite frankly, a ridiculous amount of force. With the sound of hundreds of small snaps and a single, mighty groan, the massive tree's root ball broke free of the earth. Blue and Red, their necks wrapped around the trunk, guided the falling tree into the valley between them, while Yellow and Grey pushed the massive pine onto our spine. We flared our wings and snaked our tail into its branches, using all three to stabilize the wooden behemoth on our back. Green, the head furthest from the tree, lowered his head so that he could see forwards, under the dirtball that had come up with the roots.

Slowly, with steps that sank a few inches into the earth under the weight we bore, we turned and trudged back towards the castle grounds, our prize in tow. Once we got it stable, the weight wasn't so bad, and we were able to quickly pick up the pace to that of a comfortable walk.

We passed the time in relative silence, neither speaking nor thinking at each other. We weren't sulking — even Grey had mostly gotten over the fact that we'd let the Rat escape the other day — but between the lingering low to our mood and the focus we needed to keep a tree as large as this balanced on our back, we simply had no urge to think to each other.

Actually, now that we think about it, this is the closest we've been to a singular _me_ than we've been in a long time. It's our consensus doing most of the heavy lifting at the moment, both physically and mentally. Which is actually kind of nice, now that we think about it. Relaxing, even, when added to the exercise of moving trees.

In all honesty, we _probably_ could have moved that tree by magic. Someone like Professor Flitwick _definitely_ could have. But that wasn't the point. We were just a bit antsy at the moment, so doing something by hand (or by claw) just felt good. Was there any need for a better reason?

" _Hagrid! We've got the next one!"_ Green hollered as we approached with the tree. It wasn't the first we'd uprooted from the forbidden forest, nor would it be the last. Now that it was an option, the groundskeeper and future Care of Magical Creatures professor (Yay, Hagrid!) had decided that he wanted to have a bit of forest that wasn't part of _Forbidden_ Forest in order to keep his creatures to show the class. We're pretty sure Hagrid decided to make this little grove because of us telling him about Aragog's kids trying to _eat_ us last year.

Oh, how the tables have turned. Spiders are _delicious_.

We digress.

Hagrid waved us over to the latest hole he'd dug. His giant's strength lets him wield an enlarged shovel, in turn letting him dig holes large enough for one of these trees in the time it took us to retrieve them from within the forest. This was the seventh one today, and at the rate we were going, we think we'll have twenty more done by this evening.

"Put it here, Harry!" A meaty hand clutched the edge of the hole. With surprising ease, given his size, Hagrid one-handedly hoisted himself up and out. He stood, then balanced the oversized shovel across his broad, meaty shoulders.

Obliging, we aligned our body with the hole and shifted our weight forwards. Heaving with the muscles in our necks and tail, we tilted the tree upright, slotting the root ball into the hole Hagrid had dug. As soon as it was stable and upright, Hagrid used the shovel to spread a thick layer of dirt on top.

That alone wouldn't have been enough to secure the uprooted tree. But Hagrid had a solution: transplant fertilizer. It was a mixture of dragon dung — not ours, but dung from a _normal_ dragon — and a potion from Professor Sprout that encouraged root growth. He spread the muddy, stinky mix atop the tree's roots, and for a second, nothing happened. Then the ground _writhed_ as if a million worms were all digging at once.

When it stopped, we gave the tree a gentle, experimental push. It didn't budge. Satisfied, Hagrid set to work digging the next hole, each scoop of his mighty shovel clearing away as much dirt as a scoop from a muggle backhoe. He'd be done with the hole by the time we were back with the next tree. (Even more impressively, this was only a "light workout," according to him, which made us curious as to what he considered a heavy workout.)

Once more, we turned back to the forest to gather the next tree. As we walked, we hummed an improvised melody, our five voices blending in harmony with each other. It had started as a passing whim, but by the time we'd reached the forest's edge, our harmony had evolved into something surprisingly complex.

"What if we joined the frog choir?" Blue suddenly asked, inspiration striking at that moment. Funnily enough, his question came out perfectly in tune with the rest of us.

The rest of us took a second to mull the idea over in our heads.

" _we're going to embarrass our—"_ **"I THINK ITS A GREAT IDEA!"** _"...selves in front of the whole school. we shouldn't draw attention to ourselves because—"_ Grey continued as if Red hadn't interrupted him, right until Green bit his snout and pinned his jaw shut.

"Thank you, Green. And Grey? We know you're our self-doubt personified, but please _try_ not to get so worked up over a suggestion. It's bloody annoying," Yellow quipped. Red grinned, while the corners of Green's full mouth curled into an approximation of the same.

"Yellow..." Blue let out a long breath. "Grey, I know you're just looking out for us in your own way, but I think _we_ can handle a little embarrassment. I mean really, why should we care what a bunch of snack-sized idiots think?"

His mouth still held shut by Green, Grey attempted to shrug and nod at the same time. It didn't really work, but his thought came through clearly enough. _'point taken.'_

" **ENOUGH OF THIS! HAGRID IS STILL WAITING FOR THE NEXT TREE! WE CAN DISCUSS THE FROG CHOIR LATER!"**

And that was that.

* * *

Branches inevitably broke when we carried the trees, and leaving a trail of wood and splinters was just lazy and sloppy. That evening, after all the trees had been moved, Hagrid asked us to help clean up the mess. Most of the branches we simply levitated away, but on Hagrid's request, we kept some of the larger ones and brought them back to the new grove while he went to fetch something.

To our surprise, when he returned a half hour later, Hagrid was carrying the carcass of an utterly gargantuan pig across his shoulders. The thing probably weighed three times what he did (and looked utterly delicious to boot). Given its size, it was either magical or had been grown by magic; there was no way a normal pig could get _that_ big.

"Where on earth did you get that?" Yellow licked his lips, as did the rest of us. A day's hard work had definitely worked up our appetite, and rocks weren't going to cut it.

"The estate farm, down by Hogsmeade. I thought you boys could use a treat for helping me out." The half-giant smiled jovially.

" **THANKS, HAGRID! YOU'RE THE BEST!"**

"Go ahead and set up a fire for us. I'm gonna show you how to cook big game animals." Though Hagrid's rock cakes might have been inedible to normal humans and his pastries not much better, his meat dishes were to die for — assuming you got over his taste for more _exotic_ meats. Hagrid loved animals, from the moment they were born to the moment they ended up in his stomach. And with our expanded palette, we were quite eager to learn from him, even if we could just eat the pig like any other dragon.

Hagrid showed us how to rend down the pig and showed us which parts were tastiest. Over the burning branches, we magically suspended the pig to let it cook slowly over the smoky flame. It would take a while to cook, so we settled down next to Hagrid to wait.

" _Ssso there are farmsss near here that grow pigsss that big?"_ Green asked.

"Of course! Hogsmeade's a farming town. Biggest supplier of wizarding foods in Scotland, you know."

"Really? That's actually pretty neat," Blue said.

"Helps the school too. I'm not really sure about the details, but Professor Dumbledore says that the farms help the school and the school helps the farms. Something about money and business." He shrugged. "Their food's good, and that's all that really matters, I think."

"Hear, hear!"

"Indeed," came a new voice, much to our surprise. Walking towards us, having just gotten close enough to hear the tail-end of our conversation, was Dumbledore himself. He was dressed in a different robe than this morning, one much more form-fitting and simple than his normal getup, though no less flamboyantly colorful. Combined with his purple boots, his getup looked surprisingly outdoorsy, if still utterly ridiculous.

A small mound of dirt near the fire suddenly sprang up and shaped itself into a rather utilitarian chair. Dumbledore tucked his wand away (when had he drawn it?!) and sat down. "I hope you don't mind me joining you? I'd been watching your progress all day, and when you set up this campfire, I felt compelled to join." He produced from his robes a plastic bag we recognized from Dudley's constant gluttony. "Marshmallow?"

Daintily, we plucked the sweet from Dumbledore's outstretched hand. Green cast an _Engorgio_ on it, enlarging it to something more our size, before popping it into his mouth. Immediately, we understood why Dudley liked these things so much. _"Thanksss,"_ Green tried and failed to say, the word obstructed by the sticky, white mass in his mouth.

"This is a nice surprise, Dumbledore," Hagrid cheerfully spoke. "Glad to have ya join us."

"Indeed," Blue agreed, doing a surprisingly good imitation of Dumbledore's voice — right until he couldn't hold back his chuckles. The two men smiled alongside us.

"It is a beautiful evening, isn't it? It would be a shame to waste it inside," Dumbledore replied. He pulled out another marshmallow, but didn't eat it. "I want to see your project up close as well, and I must say, I am impressed. Especially since you made it by hand." He chuckled softly. "I'm afraid my body is a bit too frail for that sort of work." Dumbledore popped the marshmallow into his mouth.

"You don't look or smell all that frail, Headmaster," Yellow observed. He really didn't; the outfit he was wearing gave us a surprisingly good inkling of his body shape, which had a bit more muscle mass than we'd have expected for someone his age. He couldn't compete with Hagrid, of course, but he wasn't skin and bones either.

After swallowing the sticky confection, the headmaster replied, "In a roundabout way, I have Hagrid to thank for that."

The man in question sat up a bit more. "How so, Professor?"

"You know how I was the transfiguration professor when you were in school, Hagrid? Well, during that time, I was writing a paper on the application of permanent biological transfiguration to repair musculoskeletal degeneration. Quite coincidentally, that's very similar to how giants build and maintain their strength. Simply observing you saved me months of effort, and allowed me to craft a spell that made exercise quite unnecessary — or so I thought. These days, I feel like I'm almost entirely held together by magic, and I haven't had the time to make a better version of the spell _or_ fix myself the old-fashioned way."

Blue and Green were paying rapt attention, entranced by the story. Given that the rest of us had an outside perspective on their thoughts and feelings, their reactions made the rest of us draw an interesting conclusion. **"I THINK THOSE TWO HAVE JUST FIGURED OUT WHAT THEY WANT TO DO WITH THEIR LIVES!"** Red bellowed merrily.

Green and Blue gave Red a questioning look, then looked at each other. A flurry of half-formed thoughts passed between the two of them; they nodded in agreement a second later. Turning to Dumbledore, they announced, _"We want to be Ssspell inventorsss."_

Dumbledore's face practically exploded with joy. "My boys, that is a wonderful choice! You two will enjoy that field so very much!"

" _of course they will. they got all the smarts,"_ Grey muttered. Despite his tone, it _was_ a compliment, if a backhanded one that insulted the rest of us.

"Yer _all_ plenty smart," Hagrid countered encouragingly.

" _we could be smarter,"_ Grey retorted.

Seeing an opportunity, Dumbledore pounced. "Could you? Do you mean to say that your grades up until now have been you _not_ doing your absolute best?"

Bloody hell. How do we answer that? Say yes, and we admit to being lazy. Say no, and that means we really are only _average_ at best.

Green sighed. _"Perhapsss we've been a little lazy."_

Dumbledore chuckled. "You're a twelve, no, _thirteen_ -year-old boy. Group of boys. You're allowed to be a little lazy on occasion. But if you really want to invent spells, perhaps it's time to take after Ms. Granger a bit more?"

" _Yesss, Sssir."_ Green's hiss lasted a tad longer than usual. His head slumped a bit more than the rest of ours did. Silently, he resolved to not be like Hermione, but be _better_ than her, such was the insult to his pride.

"Cheer up, Harry. You're still very young and very early into your magical education, and you're by no means behind. You can still get ahead." He paused and sniffed the air. "Now, if my nose does not deceive me, I think that pig of yours is quite nearly done. It's a shame I ate before coming down, because that looks delicious."

True to his words, the pig _was_ nearly done. Dumbledore transfigured a plate and utensils for Hagrid, saving the gamekeeper from needing to venture back to his hut. Once Hagrid had taken his portion, the five of us picked up what was left of the carcass and tore into it with gusto. It was just as good as it smelled.

As Hagrid and the five of us ate, Dumbledore snacked on more of his Marshmallows. The conversation drifted a while from topic to topic; as it turned out, both Dumbledore and Hagrid had plenty of stories to tell. Hagrid's were, unsurprisingly, about the various beasts he frequently handled or wanted to meet. Dumbledore, on the other hand, had all sorts of stories.

At one point, Dumbledore even had a house elf bring us drinks, as in, actual, alcoholic drinks. "You drink _petrol_. A little alcohol's not going to hurt you in the slightest, especially not at your size," Dumbledore replied when we pointed that out. "Even normal dragons aren't hurt by it."

Interestingly, he got strangely flustered when Hagrid asked what the drink he'd served was actually called. Firewhiskey, heavy whipping cream, cinnamon, and a hazelnut, Dumbledore had described, instead of giving its name. It was thick and creamy, but deliciously spicy with a hint of combustible — ironically the _whisky_ part of Firewhiskey. And once magically multiplied into a quantity that we could enjoy, we quickly downed barrels of the stuff faster than pumpkin juice.

Seeing Hagrid and Dumbledore get slightly tipsy was funny.

Sometime later, when evening had transitioned well into the night, the fire had dimmed down a good bit. But rather than letting it go out, Dumbledore replaced the mundane flame with a magical one that burned brightly despite the lack of fuel. The flame was odd, though; its light didn't seem to impair our night vision as a normal flame did, for when we rolled over onto our back, we were greeted to the sight of a far greater number of stars than we'd expected to see.

"Wow. The sky is just _beautiful_ tonight." The whole Milky Way glowed softly in the sky. We'd seen it a thousand times during astronomy class, but just simply looking up.

Dumbledore looked over at us. "Harry, out of curiosity, do you know how an unplottability ward works?"

Hmm? That's an odd question. "No, why?"

"Unplottability wards twist space and filter those who can move through it. For those who are allowed, they see everything as normal. For everyone else, they find that the hidden area is far too small and completely the wrong shape to house whatever is hidden such that it's actually quicker for them to go around the hidden area than for us to go through it. But when you twist space like that, the sky twists as well. The unplottability ward compensates by bringing in an image of the sky from somewhere else. If you track the angle of the stars and the sun from inside Hogwarts specifically, you'll find that Hogwarts appears to be twenty kilometers south of where it actually is, at a different loch. Interesting, no?"

Wait, did that mean that there was a false sky over the entirety of Hogwarts?! Is that what we could do once we'd learned enough magic? We mean, we knew that there was some really complex and powerful magic affecting the school, but that the sky itself was affected just drove home how extreme that magic was.

Blue whistled. "Bloody Hell, that's an impressive piece of spell work. Does Hogwarts even teach magic on that scale?"

Here, Dumbledore looked rather prideful, almost smug, even. "Hogwarts _is_ one of the best magic schools in all of Europe. By your seventh year, I expect you'll have the foundation you need to cast _any_ magic you desire, should you put in enough time and effort."

" **AND BECOME A HUMAN ANIMAGUS?!"**

"Ha! Even that."

We liked tipsy Dumbledore. He was really fun.

Hagrid's unexpected snore cut through the night air. Figuring that we had a better solution than letting him sleep on the ground, we gently scooped up Hagrid and set him on our chest. He was almost doll-sized compared to us, and we barely felt his weight anymore. "Night, Hagrid."

"Mmm... he's worked hard today, hasn't he?" Dumbledore asked, his voice softer than before.

"Did you know, he told us that he wanted a dragon so he could lay against it? Like it was a big dog or something." Yellow smiled, twisting his neck around until he was looking right at Hagrid. "This is surprisingly comfortable."

"I'll leave you to your rest, then. I fear I've kept you up too late as it is."

"No," Blue argued. "It was fun. We should do this again."

"If we have the time," Dumbledore agreed. "Though speaking of time, could you five come speak with me tomorrow morning? I have a rather sizeable list of things I wish to discuss with you, mostly about the immediate future."

" _Isss there a problem, Headmassster?"_ Green probed.

Dumbledore shook his head, sending his long, silver beard swinging. "One or two, but nothing so urgent that it can't wait until the morning. Your condition presents a couple challenges, but nothing we can't plan around easily enough. And the Ministry..." He trailed off. "No. It can wait. I'll be in my office all morning; visit as soon as you're reasonably awake and refreshed."

" _We sssee. We'll be there."_ Green gave a polite nod, which came out awkwardly because we were currently upside down on our back.

Dumbledore stood from his makeshift chair, which collapsed back into the dirt a second later. "Then I leave you to your rest. Good night, Harry."

* * *

"Harry! Harry!" Something poked us softly in the chest. "Wake up, Harry!" The thing poked us again. It kind of tickled, annoyingly so.

Grumbling, we slowly opened our eyes. At first, we couldn't see what was poking us, jut the orange-blue of the morning sky and the thin, cool mist that surrounded us. But, upon raising our heads, we found Hagrid forcefully elbowing us in the chest. During the night, we must have grabbed onto him. Oops.

And, to make matters worse, that dream we'd had last night was perhaps a bit _too_ vivid. Our body certainly thought so.

In a single movement, we pulled the slime-covered Hagrid one way and rolled the other way, stopping when our underside was _firmly_ on the ground. "So!" _"God!"_ "Sorry!" **"I'M!"** _"hagrid."_ The jumble of words — a very butchered sentence — came out of all five of our mouths, making a mockery of our apology. Two of us tucked their heads under our wings while the middle three tangled up with each other, trying to hide their shame under each other's coiling necks.

For his part, Hagrid merely wiped the white gunk off his face. "Harry! It's fine. Been covered in worse," he replied nonchalantly, waving his hand as if to dismiss the issue.

We believed him, but _Christ,_ this was too embarrassing for us. We whimpered.

"Really, I'm fine. It's perfectly natural," he insisted.

Still not helping, Hagrid.

The moment of silence stretched on for far too long. Eventually, Hagrid said, "Look, if—"

Grey cut him off. _"we know. aunt petunia gave us the talk. go wash off and let us be embarrassed alone."_

Without a word, Hagrid nodded and turned to do just that. Maybe it was because we didn't look human at all that he wasn't concerned about it, but _God_ , that was embarrassing. If that had happened with anyone else, it would've been so much worse.

Once both Hagrid was out of sight and we were sure that everything was tucked away again — and wasn't that a useful feature for someone without clothes? — we got up and slunk down to the lake to clean ourselves off.

Stupid hormones. Stupid sexy dream people. Stupid sexy dream dragon (dragoness?). Stupid Green and Red; it was them that did this to us.

Or maybe it was that drink that Dumbledore gave us. That drink that looked suspiciously like... _ugh._ Gross. Maybe that's why he never said the name.

We bathed off in angry shame. The cold water wasn't nearly refreshing enough.

* * *

Unfortunately, while our scales lacked the ability to blush, the human transfiguration definitely could. And while we weren't sure if it was showing by the time we made it up to Dumbledore's office, it felt like it was. We hoped we weren't. And for the sake of making sure our blush wasn't showing, we put Grey in charge of our single human face.

He wasn't in charge of our feet, though. If Grey were, we definitely wouldn't have come here. He wouldn't be making us climb the stairs behind the gargoyle to Dumbledore's office. That was all Red.

As we entered his office, Dumbledore was there waiting for us. We couldn't bring ourselves to look him in the eye. "Good morning, Harry. I trust you slept well?"

Wait, did he know? Doesn't sound like it, but...

"mmm..." Gray made our head bob slightly. A lie, but as small of one as we could get.

"Good. I am glad you're well rested." We could hear the smile in his voice, but it was gone the next sentence. "I must apologize, though. Hagrid and I often drink together over the summer, but drinking in front of you, a student, and offering you a drink was poor form on my part. Especially _that_ drink..." That last bit was muttered under his breath so quietly and so quickly that we were sure that we weren't supposed to hear it

We shook our head. "It's fine. We had fun..." We think our consensus spoke that, rather than any of us in particular.

"I'm glad, but this is still Hogwarts, and a certain amount of decorum is warranted from its staff," Dumbledore replied.

 _Not that it stops Snape from picking on us,_ we didn't say. Instead, Red grumped, "SEAMUS AND RON'S DADS HAVE TAKEN THEM DRINKING BEFORE!"

"While I will not comment on what their fathers have done with them, they are still Mr. Weasley and Mr. Finnigan's fathers. I'm only your guardian _in loco parentis,_ Harry. There are things a real father can do for his sons that no teacher ever could."

Why? Why did that hurt so much? We mean, that's not surprising that he said that, but why did it feel like a slap in the face?

"But given your _very_ unique situation, I doubt that there is anyone who could fully give you the childhood you deserve. Loathe as I am to admit it, I doubt even James Potter could be what you need right now, never mind an old man with no sons or nephews of his own." Dumbledore let out a weary sigh, and for just an instant, he looked as old and weary as he actually was. "Still, help is always given at Hogwarts to those who ask for it, whether about magic or..." He paused and glanced towards the large window to the side of his desk. "...anything else."

Dumbledore turned back to us. In a very deliberate voice, he asked, "Is there anything you'd like to ask?"

' _He knows,'_ Blue suddenly deduced. He yanked our eyes to the window — the very window Dumbledore had been watching us from last night and could have seen us through this morning.

' _But he didn't mention it at all!'_ Yellow argued. Only, as soon as both Blue and Yellow were thinking about it, they together realized _why_ he hadn't said anything. _'He's trying to be polite? Kind? Oh.'_

In the span of a single thought, our personal respect for Albus Dumbledore, the man, not the professor, shot up immensely. We were still far too embarrassed to actually mention our little incident this morning, but much of the fear evaporated. "No. But thank you anyway," we eventually replied. We meant it, too.

"Of course. Now, that brings us to the actual first thing on my list. Regarding our efforts to give you a more stable human form, we've been corresponding with a couple of other trustworthy transfiguration masters across the country, and we think we've nearly cracked it — at least, at a theoretical level. There might be one or two major stumbling blocks we have to cross, but if those can be surmounted, we might be able to begin training you in the necessary magic shortly after the term begins. With luck and hard work, perhaps by this time next year, you'll be able to take on a human form under your own power."

"THAT'S FANTASTIC!" Red bellowed. The window rattled with the power of his voice.

Green, however, was more cautious. "And if we can't crossss thossse ssstumbling blocksss?"

Dumbledore nodded. "We have options to get around them. Professor McGonagall is working on a list of tests that we can perform in order to draw us a road map, so to speak. At this point, however, I am almost entirely certain that we can eventually grant you the ability to split into five smaller bodies while remaining mentally connected; what those bodies _are_ and how much control you have over their eventual form depends on the results of these tests."

"And how soon can we do them?" Blue demanded.

"As soon as McGonagall is done. I expect that will be in the next two or three days, maybe even as soon as tomorrow."

"Brilliant!"

Dumbledore nodded. From behind his desk, Dumbledore pulled out a surprisingly muggle-looking file folder. On it were two distinguishing marks: the Gryffindor crest, and our name, written in the loopy handwriting of Professor McGonagall. "Now, the next most pressing issues all regard your future education here. They all stem from the same core question: how do I treat you academically?

"Education-wise, do I treat you as a singular entity, with any head being interchangeable with the others, ultimately considering you to be one student?" We bristled a bit at that, but Dumbledore kept going without stopping. "Do I treat you as a collective, allowing you to each attend classes but keep your grades, points, and punishments together as one? Or do I treat you as five independent people that coincidentally to all have the same record for their first two years? There are pros and cons to all three."

"We're different people," we declared. The idea that he'd just treat us as one person offended us.

Dumbledore made a placating gesture with his hand. "I am aware. I am merely referring to the paperwork involved and how your schedule works. If we treat you as one, all five of you would be expected to attend classes together. You'd follow one schedule, submit one set of assignments, earn one grade, collectively earn and lose points, and share all detentions. In essence, we pretend you cannot be in five places at once — or, more practically, during the school day, we do not let you divide apart with the cloning spell. This is basically what you did when you were a single person."

But the cloning spell was _fun_. It was nice to be able to split apart physically even if we were all still mentally together. "None of us really like that idea," Yellow said.

"Understandable. The next option is to consider you a collective. Like the first, your overall grades and points would be unified, but we would allow you to split apart and attend classes that would otherwise be at the same time. Each head would get its own schedule and be assigned its own work. While I think this might be the best for you if you all want to pursue a single career and the most efficient in terms of education, it also means that your grades are dependent on the work ethic of individual heads. If I haven't missed my guess, I suspect Blue and Green might be a bit displeased with that."

The two named heads both commandeered our human head and made us nod. "Yesss, definitely." A mental poke shot across our collective, jabbing at both Red and Grey, who we _knew_ wouldn't pull their weight if given the chance to slack off. Yellow snickered in the sidelines, but shut his trap when Green mentally glared at him.

"That brings us to the third option. _Harry_ Potter is unenrolled from Hogwarts while the brothers Red, Blue, Green, Yellow, and Grey Potter are transferred in. You each get your own schedule and are required to do your own assignments, but you are all completely independent of one another. Five students following five different educational paths. You might be taking your core classes multiple times, but I doubt extra lessons would hurt anyone. And, in the future, I suspect you'll each enjoy having the ability to pursue your own careers on your own merits."

"That option sounds the best, we think," we spoke.

Dumbledore nodded, but asked, "Are you sure? I do agree with you, but I'd rather you take some time to think it over. You five know yourselves and each other better than anyone else on Earth; I want you to pick what you think is best for yourself."

Grey didn't care, save for a desire to do as little work as possible. But in a strangely kind-hearted gesture, he also told us that he didn't want to drag us down and was therefore willing to put in the minimum required work for the third option. Red was offended at the first option, while the third option sounded enough like a challenge to get his interest. The promise of succeeding on individual merit snapped up both Blue and Green's attentions. The only one of us entranced by the second option was Yellow, the most communal of us, but he was outvoted.

It didn't take us long to really figure out where we stood, and upon tallying up our thoughts and feelings, we came to the same conclusion the consensus reached a few seconds before. "We're sure," we announced. "We'd like to be individuals."

"Of course, my boys." Dumbledore beamed at us. "Now, does that mean you also wish to be sorted? Harry Potter was sorted; you five have not been. You could continue as Gryffindors, but from what you have told me and what the Sorting Hat has said, I doubt all but one of you consider yourselves Gryffindors. Am I correct?"

We nodded. "We think we could sort ourselves. Mostly. We actually don't know where Grey would end up."

"A mystery for the sorting ceremony, I take it?"

We answered the real question behind his words. "Yeah, we want to be re-sorted as well." It would mean putting Green in the same house as Malfoy and Snape, but ironically, we think he'd be the best of all five of us to deal with them.

"Then you will be sorted after the new first years," Dumbledore agreed. He picked up a quill and noted something down on a small pad of paper. We didn't try to see what it said. When he put his quill down, Dumbledore spoke again. "Onto the next topic: your dormitory. You are more than welcome to continue sleeping down in the Chamber of Secrets until such time as you can permanently maintain your transformation on your own. We can worry about your future sleeping arrangements when the time comes, but I thought I'd ask now, since we're on the topic. Would you like to stay down there, would you like a private room in the castle to yourselves, or would you like to bunk with your respective housemates?"

"The Chamber, definitely," we replied almost instantly. "WE BEAT THE BASILISK THERE. WE CLAIM IT FOR OURSELVES!" Red boastfully added. Then Green threw in his two cents. "We're the only parssselmouthsss in the ssschool. If we're not down there, it'sss going to sssit empty."

Plus, that meant we wouldn't be tempted to eat Malfoy every time we saw him sleeping only a bed away.

"A good point. Very well. I shall have the house elves attend to it as if it were any other room." He added to the note he'd written, then wrote a second note. The first he slid off to the side of his desk, while the latter he slipped into our folder. "Now, the rest of the stuff I had to talk about still regards Hogwarts, but not your education specifically.

"First, in a week, Hagrid will be heading down to Diagon alley to pick up a few purchases for the school. You should accompany him to pick up your supplies. Since you've elected to be five students, you'll need five sets of consumables — potions supplies, parchment, ink, and the like. You may, of course, share textbooks, and since your current transfiguration includes clothing, you may skip the robes if you so desire. I do suggest, however, that you figure out if you will be needing _a_ new wand or a _set_ of new wands. Your wandless talent may be impressive, but I think I'd feel safer if you five each had the best control you could get."

Red snickered as he suddenly pictured our human body chaotically trying to wave around five wands at once. It was absurd, and it got the rest of us laughing as well — enough that our laughter bubbled out into the real world. As we calmed down, Blue said, "Sorry, funny thought. But yeah, we'll do that."

"Good. Now, the next matter regards your aunt." All four-and-a-half of our smiles vanished. "Several days ago, I went out to visit your aunt to inform her of your condition. From what I gather, you ran off without telling her where you were going or why?"

We scowled. "She wouldn't care."

"That... was not quite the impression I gathered from her. I suspect your disappearance did hurt her. Or rather, re-opened Petunia's decades-old wounds." He let out a long breath.

"Perhaps this isn't my story to tell, but for you to understand what I'm about to ask, I must tell it. When Lily Evans was accepted into Hogwarts, I received a set of letters from Petunia asking if she too could be admitted to Hogwarts. With each refusal, her letters became angrier and more desperate. At one point, Lily herself came to me, asking on behalf of her sister. It was the last time Lily ever spoke of Petunia to me; I fear I might have unintentionally broken a family."

...what?

Aunt Petunia... was _envious_ of Mom? But... she thought Mom was a freak! Like us! She hated mom. She hated us. She didn't love us. She couldn't love us. She loved Dudley. Dudley was normal. We were a _freak._ We were a _monster_. Would she have loved us? Could we have grown up loved like Dudley? Why couldn't we—

"Harry!"

The five of us snapped to attention. "...Professor?"

"Take a breath, please." We did so, and a splash of calm partially quieted the thoughts bouncing between us. "Harry, boys, I must apologize. It seems, in my age, I misjudged the relationship between the two, no, _six_ , of you. I knew of Petunia's envy, but I mistakenly believed you would see it too. I believed you would understand your aunt, and that she would have matured enough to take pride in your abilities."

"ᴍɪsᴊᴜᴅɢᴇᴅ?!" Red growled dangerously. Despite being merely human and him speaking in his version of a whisper, our voice still shook the room. "SHE DESPISED US!" he spat.

"And yet she nearly collapsed when I told her you'd nearly died saving the life of Ginny Weasley," Dumbledore replied calmly.

"Why do you tell usss thisss?!" Green hissed, venom tainting his voice.

"Because I want to give you the opportunity to extend the olive branch to her. She only thinks you were ill. I wanted to invite her here, to reunite with her nephew as well as to get closure on her sister's life," Dumbledore replied. "If you want, I can invite her here. If not, I ask you to at least write to her. Please, don't let this wound fester in your heart."

We'd almost entirely stopped listening when he suggested inviting Aunt Petunia. The idea was almost _sacrilege_ to us; Hogwarts was our safe haven, our sanctuary from the Dursleys. Our thoughts were almost incoherent with anger and confusion.

 _Almost_ , because Grey's mind was terrifyingly cool and orderly. He knew _exactly_ what he was feeling: malice. An idea bloomed in his head.

"how much did you tell aunt petunia about us?" Grey inquired.

"Only that you were ill and had come to us seeking aid. It was, unfortunately, a very short conversation."

"then invite her here. in fact, invite _all_ the dursleys. we might as well settle things with the whole family at once." The face on our transfigured body and the tone of our transfigured voice said "reluctant acceptance," despite Grey's emotional chant of _HATE-RAGE-MALICE-HATE-RAGE-MALICE!_

Grey, it seemed, was _scarily_ good at lying, for Dumbledore immediately relaxed and agreed. "I'm glad you're willing to put such things behind you. It speaks well of your character, boys."

Stab us in the heart again, why don't you? But we _have_ to do this. Grey's right, for once. Humoring Aunt Petunia's childhood envy is _not_ going to make things better for us. Scaring the crap out of the Dursleys, however, just might.

"Thank you, Professor," Grey continued, switching to a good imitation of Blue's normal tone. "And thanks for telling us. Even if the truth hurts, I'm glad we know why Aunt Petunia is the way she is. The others are glad too."

"Of course, Blue." The real Blue balked at that. Almost nobody had addressed us individually when we were like this, and somehow Grey had done his imitation so well that it fooled Dumbledore! "I'll contact them and set up a visit soon enough."

"Was there anything else, Professor?" the now-recovered Yellow asked.

Dumbledore nodded. "Just one more thing, and unfortunately, this is the worst news I have for you today. An unidentified body was found in Hogsmeade a few days ago. Rather than investigating it, our _esteemed_ Minister has decided to blame it on Sirius Black and has decreed that there will be even more Dementor guards out of a misguided attempt to protect you. They will be arriving later today."

"Bloody hell! _Really_?"

"Unfortunately. Were you a normal student, I'd advise you to stay inside by the fire. Considering your nature and the time you spend outside, I have a different suggestion. Allow me to place a tracking charm on you, and then go explore the world for a few days. Give me time to see if I can talk Cornelius down again. McGonagall can meet you anywhere to perform the tests on you, the house elves can bring you food if you can't find enough for yourself, you can meet Hagrid for your trip to London if it takes that long, and your family's visit can be arranged for a later time."

"Oh, um...? Thanks, Professor," we said, surprised and pleased with the suggestion.

"Of course." He pulled out his wand and gave it two lazy flicks. The first sprayed a blue mist across us that otherwise didn't seem to do anything, while the latter sent a ripple through the air. As it hit our transfigured body, our robes shifted to a muggle t-shirt and jeans, like what we wore at the Dursleys. The black t-shirt had the Gryffindor lion on it, right near where the Gryffindor emblem had been before, but otherwise, it was passably muggle. "And if you happen to make it to London before Hagrid, Gringotts can exchange Galleons for Pounds, while standing on a street curb and raising your wand will summon the Knight Bus to take you wherever you need to go for a few sickles."

Odd. "You're just letting us run wild," Blue remarked curiously.

"Hogwarts isn't a prison, and it is currently summer break. Even if I did have the authority to stop you, _could_ I? Could your _family_? Hogwarts soon will be unpleasant for you, and I suspect that wherever you end up, it won't be your relatives home. I trust you'll be wise regarding the Statute of Secrecy, especially after _last year's car incident_ , but at the same time, I strongly doubt that there'll be a situation you can't reasonably get yourself out of. At least, one that's worse than being swarmed by hungry dementors."

"Point taken. And with the tracking spell," Blue began.

"I will know where you are at all times," Dumbledore finished. "I'll check in on you on occasion if I can't get the situation resolved quickly enough."

We were still reeling a bit from the news about Aunt Petunia, and the news about the dementors had only soured our mood further. But Dumbledore was willing to let us go off on our own. That almost made up for it, and it made us respect the man that much more.

"We'll take our invisibility cloak, just in case."

"A wise choice. Now, I do believe that's all I had for you. Do stay safe, my boys."

We ran off in a hurry.


	8. Dragon Diving Deep

A very weary Minerva McGonagall half-walked, half-shuffled into Dumbledore's office, a cup full of a potent mix of wit-sharpening potion, wideye potion, and concentrated coffee in her hand. Interestingly, she was holding the cup upside down, as gravity had apparently decided that it would rather not deal with something of that potency. And despite nursing a very potent potion that would definitely keep her head up and eyes open, metaphorically _and_ literally, McGonagall visibly fought to stay awake.

Dumbledore immediately recognized the condition she was in. Wordlessly, his magic pushed her down into a chair and pried the drink from her hands. "Minnie, please. You _must_ stop pulling these serial all-nighters."

Despite her weariness, McGonagall gave her mentor and friend an almost manic smile. "I've almost got it. I'm so close! Even after the latest setbacks, I can almost taste it."

"You're going to give yourself a stroke," Dumbledore cautioned. "You _need_ to rest. Mr. Potter can wait a few more days."

"But I've got the list." She held up the sheet of parchment she'd been clutching in her other hand.

"You didn't have to do that just yet," Dumbledore implored.

"I wanted to!" She suddenly snapped. Her head bobbed, and the rage was gone almost as fast as it had come. "Sorry. Let me fill you in, then I can sleep."

"I'd much prefer you get some shuteye now, but if you insist..." Dumbledore allowed.

"I do. I got a letter regarding a newly discovered facet of human transfiguration, and while it _does_ simplify the work that Harry will have to do, it also presents a number of issues. Albus, I don't think this is going to work as well as we want," McGonagall replied. "There's still a _slim_ chance, though, and I've spent the last two days straight teasing out improvement after improvement to get those odds up." She smiled, weary, yet proud of herself.

"And what are his odds?"

"Before we take any measurements on them and adjust accordingly? One-in-ten that it goes perfectly, roughly seven-in-ten that they achieve half-transfigured but serviceable forms, and roughly two-in-ten that their animagus forms come out crippled and disfigured. That's per head; it's entirely possible one is crippled while the others come out fine," Minerva reported. "And the longer this takes, the worse off his odds are going to be."

"How long do we have?" Albus frowned.

Minerva shrugged. "Months, I hope. We're working on the timescale of Harry's memory and subconscious; how well he remembers being human and how much he wants to become human have a big influence on the result. The more time he spends as a dragon and the more he accepts being a dragon, the harder this is going to be for him to change back. His Form Stone might be more of a blessing than we realized."

"I assume if we were to try to extol the value of being human again, it would help them through that transition?"

"Ye—" The transfiguration professor cut herself off as she re-evaluated her answer. "Yes and no. It depends on the head and how they react to our efforts. If they accept it, sure, it would help. But if they reject it..."

The threat of crippling Harry needn't be said. Both understood the consequences.

"Perhaps we should wait until after we perform the tests on him," Dumbledore suggested. McGonagall nodded in agreement.

"Where are they anyway?" she asked.

Dumbledore tilted his head slightly as if he were listening to something McGonagall couldn't hear. "About twenty kilometers south of Glasgow by now."

McGonagall opened her mouth, then closed it. She did that again. The third time she opened her mouth, the confused expression on her face had vanished. "Oh, right. You were going to send him off to avoid the dementors." She exhaled slowly. "I still think that's a wee bit foolish of you, sending him off without accompaniment."

"Perhaps originally, but there was an incident last night. Harmless, physically speaking, but they needed an outlet — not to mention the turmoil our conversation brought them. I suspect Hagrid and I would not be pleasant company for him right now, and no offense, but I don't think you could help him with this either."

McGonagall bristled slightly but didn't contradict him. Eventually, she forced herself to relax. "You at least have a tracking spell on him and the house-elves watching?"

"I do."

Minerva nodded once.

"And Minerva? Since they are not here at the moment, there is nothing you can do right now. Please, get some sleep."

* * *

Hedwig was a _genius_ bird. Originally, we'd planned to simply follow her to Hermione's house, but after only a few minutes of flying, it became evident that her max speed and my minimum airspeed didn't quite match up. Before I could even think of a solution that didn't involve me carrying her in my claws or in my mouth, she settled down in the crook between Blue and Yellow's necks and grabbed onto a ridge of scales with her talons. After a minute of wordless experimentation, she even figured out a system to steer us by pecking at Blue or Yellow, depending on which way she wanted us to go.

It was quite clever.

As she settled in for the long flight, Blue caught sight of her hooting strangely with her eyes squinted oddly. Occasionally, as she started to relax, she'd squeeze her talons again and start the hooting all over again. She was _laughing,_ we realized.

Red got the joke first. **"I THINK WE'RE THE BIGGEST PACKAGE TO EVER BE DELIVERED BY OWL!"**

"Hedwig is definitely going to have the best bragging rights among the mail owls,"Yellow quipped, adding to our amusement.

" _Hedwig, Queen of the Mail Owlsss, Rider of Dragonsss, Empressss of the Cloudy Sssky,"_ Green added, much to Hedwig's delight.

"You lot are going to give that bird an ego so big, she won't be able to fly anymore." Blue good-naturedly stuck out his tongue at the others.

Grey didn't add anything, but he smiled anyway. Hedwig was still the only one that could make him happy enough to smile naturally and without malice.

Far down below us, another city slowly slid into view. Despite it being daytime, we weren't really that scared of being seen for a couple reasons. First, people rarely looked up. Oliver Wood drilled that into our heads during quidditch practice, citing that almost half the time, players failed to score or catch the snitch because they didn't look up when they should have been. For non-quidditch players? We'd be surprised if more than a handful of people looked up high enough to see us.

Then, there was the fact that we were so high up, higher than we'd ever been on a broom. Even with all five of us combining our vision to look at the same spot, we could barely make out people, let alone their cars. And if we couldn't see them well, then it stood to reason that they couldn't see us well either. We'd just look like a bird or something.

And if they did recognize that we were a dragon, they'd probably either imagine that they're going a bit crazy, or they'd try to tell and would get obliviated.

Landing would be a bit tricky, but we already had a plan for that. When we finally got to the area where Hermione's house was, we sent Hedwig ahead to find a relatively empty and secluded spot. When she returned, we took note of where she was coming from.

Then we dove. Putting our wings into overdrive, we descended faster than a free-fall, gaining every bit of speed we could. Then, when we were about halfway to the ground, we activated our form stone. Clutching the satchel that had been in our claws tight to our chest, we curled up into a little ball and braced.

We slammed into the ground _hard._ We bounced, we rolled, we slid...

And then we got up and dusted ourselves off.

If we'd been transfigured the normal way, we'd have broken every bone in our body. But we were shell-transfigured, and for all that we looked like a normal human, we still had scales of mithril and bones of adamantium. At worst, we'd need some bruise cream, but we doubted even that would be necessary. Better yet, since we had nigh-indestructible skin, our altered form's clothes (which were actually fused to us) were similarly tough. There was no way a t-shirt would have survived that otherwise. It was a shame that the shell wasn't nearly as tough magically as it was physically.

Our satchel was a little scuffed-up though, but it was nothing a _reparo_ couldn't mend. Better yet, nothing had fallen out. We weren't carrying much, but if we'd lost our vault key, the cloak, or the letter we'd forgotten to send to Hermione the other day, we'd have been quite upset.

Giving the satchel one last dust-off, we looked up to orient ourselves. We were in a small park and, thanks to the threatening clouds above, we were almost alone. Not completely, as it turned out, for there was a woman running towards us. And, if the Walkman clipped to her running shorts was any indication, she was a muggle.

"Holy crap, kid! Are you alright?!"

"We're fine," we said. Internally, Grey hissed, catching our mistake. "Excuse me, _I_ need to get to my friend's house."

"Wait, no, hang on! You just fell from the sky!"

"Did I?" Grey asked. He made us look up. "Huh. Knew it was getting a bit windy out. Anyway, I need to go before it really starts raining."

We jogged off in the direction of the tree Hedwig was sitting in, ignoring the baffled woman behind us. Hedwig, the clever bird, flapped to a different tree as we approached, letting us adjust course without being obvious that we were following her. Perhaps intentionally, she led us away from the jogger and into the neighborhood that was strikingly similar to Privet Drive.

' _Nice job, Grey,'_ Blue complimented sincerely.

' _that was scary,'_ he admitted. _'i hate lying. makes me feel gross.'_

' _And yet you're better than any of us. I know I would have messed that up_ badly _.'_ Yellow's statement came with a packet of flustered emotions shared across our consensus.

' _still hate it.'_ But he hated almost everything, so that was basically normal for him. Still, we repeat: only Hedwig can get Grey to smile.

And speaking of Hedwig, it only took us three more tree hops to get us to Hermione's street, whereupon she glided down to the small, wooden gate in front of Hermione's house. We'd never been here before, so we took a second to find the house number and the street name, just to confirm that it was her address. It was, and we strolled up to her front door, Hedwig hopping onto our arm as we passed her.

We rang the doorbell.

We waited.

We rang it again.

We waited some more.

"Hedwig," we eventually asked our owl, "could you fly around and peek in the windows to see if Hermione and her family are home?"

With an enthusiastic hoot, Hedwig took off. It didn't take her more than a minute to return. The disappointed _"woo"_ and a slump of her shoulders told us exactly what we suspected.

"SO, WHAT NOW?!"

' _Well... we could always take the Knight Bus to London,'_ Blue thought, also picturing the leftover coins we had from last year and the borrowed wand we'd procured from the Room of Requirement. _'We go to Gringotts, get some muggle Pounds, and then investigate why Dudley likes the cinema so much. How does that sound?'_

' _We could wrap Hedwig in the cloak, too,'_ Green added enthusiastically.

' _I like this plan.'_ With Yellow's support, it officially became our plan of action, even before Red and Grey had weighed in. (For the record, the vote was unanimous.)

We took a second to do something else first. From our bag, we withdrew a letter that we'd meant to send the other day and shoved it into the mail slot on the front door of Hermione's house. That accomplished, the five of us departed.

We stopped a short distance later and stood on the edge of the sidewalk. Though we weren't entirely sure what we were doing, we followed Dumbledore's advice and raised our temporary wand.

A second later, there was a whoosh followed by a loud horn that made us jump and Hedwig screech irritably. A second after that, a _massive,_ purple, triple-decker bus rolled to a stop in front of us, the words "KNIGHT BUS" boldly proclaimed on the front.

As it rolled to a stop, the man standing on the back staircase announced, "Welcome to the Knight Bus, emergency transport for the stranded witch or wizard. I am Stan Shunpike, and I will be your conductor for the day." Stan tucked away the paper he'd been reading from and looked at us. "No cage for yer owl?"

"Didn't bring it," we replied. "Can we get to the Leaky Cauldron on this bus?"

"Sure can. A ticket's eleven Sickles."

We stepped up, reaching into our satchel for the money (which we had to remind ourselves not to eat). Trading it for a receipt printed from the device strapped to Stan's chest, we hopped onto the bus.

It was not like any bus we'd ever seen before. There were a whole bunch of random chairs, and absolutely none of them were strapped down in any way. Some of them were even upside down.

' _ **THIS LOOKS LIKE FUN!'**_ Red's loud thoughts bellowed in our head.

He was right. It was. It was very _, very_ fun.

Well, not for Grey, but that was only because he was desperately trying to keep us from falling on Hedwig. If she hadn't been there, he still wouldn't have had fun, but he'd have had less not-fun.

* * *

Even with only two eyes at the moment, having five minds worth of brainpower meant we could simply notice more things at once. Yet even with that advantage, Diagon Alley still threatened to overwhelm us with the explosion of colors and shapes that made up the massive array of shops and the crowds that flowed like water between them. (Funnily enough, we remembered wishing we had eight more eyes the first time we came here. Now, if only we could use the eight new eyes we now had...) The smells similarly threatened to overwhelm us; between the countless apothecaries, pet stores, restaurants, and food stalls, we were basically salivating within minutes of walking in. And then the _people..._ bloody hell!

It was bad enough that we ended up blowing the rest of our money on snacks, partially out of hunger and partially to distract ourselves. And sure, the snacks tasted great, but considering what we normally ate, they didn't even fill us up in the slightest.

It made us wonder just how much it was costing the school to feed us. Sure, much of our food was magically multiplied, but even then, it had to be a lot. Worse, we were still growing, and that meant so were our food expenses.

We were already holding back our appetite as much as our body would allow and supplementing the rest of our diet with rocks until we were sick of them. If our body had its way, we'd be eating a whole bunch more meat. Thus, the idea of eating _even less_ struck us as rather unpleasant. As if agreeing, our stomach rumbled a bit, and we wondered when the last time we'd felt properly _full_ was.

' _ **INSTEAD OF SCARING THE DURSLEYS, CAN WE JUST EAT THEM INSTEAD?!'**_ Red half-heartedly joked.

Vernon would probably taste like that pig we had last night. Dudley would taste like marshmallow. And Aunt Petunia? Lean horse meat. At least, that's what Grey pictured.

' _We can't eat them.'_

Grey perked up. _'and why not?'_

" _We just can't. It would be bad."_

' _bad as in_ _ **wrong**_ _? or would it be_ _ **troublesome**_ _?'_ Grey mused.

" _Bad,"_ Yellow insisted without clarification.

We dropped the topic, instead choosing to move on to address Green's and Red's other contributions to our current emotional state. Namely, their rather sudden infatuation with basically everyone age thirty and younger.

For as near perfect as our transfiguration was, it _was_ missing a particular piece of anatomy — the same piece that had gotten caused the incident with Hagrid this morning. Given the circumstances, that was... fortunate, to say the least. _'Could you perverts_ _ **please**_ _tone it down?!'_ Blue demanded.

' _It'sss mossstly Red'sss fault,'_ Green insisted.

' _You say as you're staring at some bloke's arse.'_

Green hesitated. _'It'sss a nice arssse.'_

' _A_ _ **bloke's**_ _arse!'_

' _ **SO WHAT IF A BLOKE HAS A NICE ARSE?! AN ARSE IS AN ARSE!'**_

' _I am confused...'_

' _I think we all are. Aren't blokes supposed to like girls?! Not other blokes? That just not normal.'_ Blue paused, then did the mental equivalent of snapping his jaw shut as something occurred to him, then the rest of us. We swallowed. _'So, um, I'm actually going to make an executive decision here: we're going to the bookstore to see if they've got anything about growing up before we continue to trust anything Aunt Petunia told us. Still don't like it, though...'_ He thought that last sentence more quietly as if muttering.

' _ **WHY DOES IT MATTER?! I'M JUST LOOKING AT PEOPLE'S ARSES—'**_

' _And titsss.'_

'— _ **AND TITS—'**_

' _And armsss.'_

'— _ **AND SHUT UP GREEN! THE POINT IS, IT'S NOT HURTING ANYONE! DOES IT MATTER WHAT GENDER THEY ARE?!'**_

' _But it's gross! Sex is gross! And there's only one hole down there on guys, and you_ _ **know**_ _what comes out of there!'_ Blue shuddered within us. _'You're both disgusting!'_

Green and Red both scowled, but Yellow metaphorically stepped in between us. _'Bothers, stop it! Red, Green, you are making Blue uncomfortable. Blue, there is no need to insult them. All three of you need to just shut up!'_ Yellow gave an authoritative snort of disdain. Chastised, the three of us he'd named slunk back deeper into our headspace. _'Grey, get up here with me. We're driving for now. And you three — for the next hour, nobody thinks about food or sex! Think about something productive, and if you can't do that, imagine the Queen if you need to!'_

There was a moment of relative silence in our headspace.

' _ **I BET HAGRID HAS A BIG, MEATY ARSE!'**_

' _You sick little bastard! I'm going to strangle you!'_

' _SHUT UP! SHUT UP! A MILLION TIMES, SHUT THE BLOODY HELL UP!'_

As he said they would, Yellow and Grey walked us towards Gringotts bank. For as tall of a building as it was, it was odd seeing something so crooked remain standing so strongly. But then again, _every_ building on this street was slanted diagonally and _oh my god we just got the joke._

Note to selves: Facepalming with glasses is not fun, though Hedwig certainly seemed to think it was funny. _Prat._ On the upside, facepalming-with-glasses was something to think about other than the thunder of hormones echoing through our head at the prospect of being surrounded by people who weren't old and wrinkly.

And you know what else there was to think about? Money.

We stepped into the bank, only to be almost overwhelmed by the scent of gold, silver, bronze, marble, gemstones, and — strangely enough — raw meat. That last one was probably the smell of the goblins themselves, and like all the other smells, it just made us hungrier.

"I'm Harry Potter," Yellow said once we'd made it through the queue and to the teller. "I'd like to make a withdraw from my vault, number 687." We produced our tiny golden key, a little piece of metal smaller than one of our scales. An idle thought: we wondered how the money locked away by this key compared to the value of our mithril scales. Dumbledore said the metal of our scales was extremely valuable; was it possible that our own flesh was worth more than our family fortune?

"Someone will escort you down in a moment." The teller called out, summoning another goblin to escort us down. We followed behind.

The cart ride was much the same as the last two times, a flurry of motion as the cart dove into the depths of Gringotts. Unlike those times, we weren't alone in experiencing it; the five of us screamed in delight as the cart raced ever lower. Even Hedwig, who was sitting on our head, sounded like she was enjoying the ride.

As we raced down, a brief flash of light caught our eye. It was gone almost before we could tell what it was, but with five minds looking, the source of the familiar sight was obvious to us: fire. And in Gringotts, that meant one thing: _dragons._

We arrived at our vault. As soon as the door was open, we resisted the temptation to devour our treasure, grabbed some of the gold, failed to keep resisting the temptation, swallowed a human-sized handful of coins (to the utter horror of our goblin escort), and then bagged up more than enough for our Hogwarts shopping and a day or two of muggle fun. We especially made sure we'd grabbed plenty of sickles for riding the knight bus around London.

Before our vault closed, Yellow asked the goblin, "Excuse me, is it possible for you to take me down to see the dragons on the lower levels? I've never seen a real dragon before." Cue a round of internal laughter from the rest of us, minus Grey.

' _we're gonna get in trouble for this...'_ Grey warned.

"That would be quite improper, _gold eater,_ " the goblin snapped. "If you are done..."

"Not even if we gave you a couple Galleonsss?" Green inquired. He scooped up another small handful of coins. It barely made a dent in our pile.

The goblin's eyes turned shifty and he looked about. After a second, he snatched the gold and pocketed it so seamlessly we almost couldn't tell he'd moved. "Gringotts is not liable if you get yourself set on fire or eaten." He almost sounded like he _wanted_ us to suffer those things. The predatory grin on his face said much the same.

This time, the cart ride was even _faster._ More twists and turns, even loops and rolls that were fast enough to press us into the seat despite being upside down. It was _definitely_ as good as any roller coaster ride (not that we'd been on a rollercoaster before).

The track shot out into an open area above a great chasm, where it dove and spiraled back towards the cliffside. For just a moment, we had a fantastic sense of just how deep Gringotts actually went. So entranced by the depth of these caves were we that we only had a second to notice the waterfall spilling onto the track ahead of us.

We had no time to react, even if we'd known what it was.

Like every time we transformed, the shift and split in perspective was instant, though not terrible disorienting. But never had we transformed involuntarily, nor while riding a minecart while hurtling towards a hole in a cliff that was suddenly much too small for us.

Metal shattered below us. Our shoulders slammed into the rock, painfully jarring our entire body. For a second, nothing happened, but then we slid backwards.

Twisting and tumbling, we fell into the abyss. Once, twice, thrice we slammed into the wall, each impact sending us spinning in a different way, until finally, with a literally earth-shattering crash, we came to rest.

" **BLOODY HELL! WHAT WAS THAT?!"**

His voice gave us a collective _'oh shite'_ moment. Yellow grasped at his neck for the pendant. It was there, but his touch did nothing. We didn't turn human again.

Our form stone was broken, and we were god knows how many miles deep underground under London. This was bad. This was _very, very bad._

" _Oh, ssshite! Hedwig!? HEDWIG!?"_ Green cried out. Our blood went cold as ice.

A distant hoot came from far above. We looked up. There, orbiting the single, distant source of light, was Hedwig. She slowly descended down, spiraling and wobbling through the air without flapping her wings. Her landing was ungraceful and undignified, but aside from being wet and having some feathers askew, she didn't look too upset.

"Good. You're not hurt. That's a relief."

"But what about the goblin that was with us?!" Blue suddenly realized. We looked about, but there was nobody else with us, and no _body_ to be found. We were alone. "Shite! We're dead. We're _very_ dead."

" _i told you so. i told you that this would be trouble. but did you listen to me? of course not,"_ Grey spat.

"How on earth could we have predicted a magic waterfall would break our pendant?!" Blue spat.

" _i just meant trouble with the goblins for paying one off, but this is worse. i was still right."_ Grey huffed and rolled his eyes. His head started turning around searchingly. _"anybody see our stuff?"_

"How can you be so bloody calm?! We might have just killed somebody!"

" _wouldn't be the first time."_ Grey shrugged. _"nor the second, nor even the third, fourth, or fifth."_

"Grey... what are you talking about?"

" _professor quirrell, diary-riddle, those acromantulas. they can talk, so..."_ Again, Grey shrugged, as if he wasn't just informing us of our budding _serial killer_ habit. _"what's one more body?"_

"Why are you so bloody calm about this?! We're killers! You... your insane! We're not like this!"

Grey lazily spun around and looked Yellow right in the eye. Despite the softness of his voice, his reply cut through the quiet air. _"bullshite. we are, and we always have been. you know as well as i do that i've always been in the back of harry's head, one voice among many."_ He blinked and looked to the side. _"oh, there's our bag."_

Our dark head made us lumber over to the edge of the ledge we'd landed on. He bent down and picked up our satchel, then placed it on our back and affixed it with a sticking charm. Grey did all this despite the storm of anger and revulsion coming from the other heads — from all of us as one.

" _Enlightening,"_ Green muttered, despite his upset. _"Perhaps that'sss why the Hat pussshed Ssslytherin ssso hard."_

"How can you possibly approve of this?!" Yellow demanded.

" _I don't. I jussst sssaid I underssstood."_ Green glared at Grey, then looked upwards. _"More pragmatically, what now? Climb, or wait for help?"_

It was a good question. We were who knows how deep underground, in territory held by possibly angry goblins — and god knows we need _another_ goblin rebellion to listen to Binns drone on about. We could send Hedwig to get help, but that would take who knows how long. And how we'd get out of the bank as a dragon, nevermind out of Diagon Alley or London, was a mystery.

Did Dumbledore know? He'd put that tracking charm on us, so it was possible, but would that let him know we were down here? Would the goblins even let him come down here? And could he get us out, or would we have to wait until we got another form stone?

We had too many questions and not nearly enough answers.

"Hedwig, can you fly back up?" Hedwig hooted affirmatively. "Good. Wait in somewhere where you can see the people coming and going from Gringotts. If you see Dumbledore, go to him, but if Gringotts closes before we get out, fly back to Hogwarts and wait there. Got it?" Blue instructed.

Again, Hedwig hooted a yes. She took a second to finish straightening out her feathers, and then took wing. Like the reverse of before, she slowly spiraled further and further up, leaving us alone in this deep abyss.

A pained, almost pleading, screech-like roar cried out from above as Hedwig passed. It was a sound very much like our voices, and though wordless, we could _feel_ the suffering contained within it.

" _i have a bad feeling about this..."_ For once, we all agreed with Grey.

Without any debate, we walked over to the wall and started to climb. It was hard; the rock was fragile, and one wrong move would cause the stone to break away under our immense weight. And wrong moves we made; several times, we lost grip with one or two of our limbs, and twice, we fell back to the ledge below. But we couldn't give up; no matter how strong our magic wings were, there simply wasn't enough room in the abyss to build up the speed for vertical flight.

But, now that we think about it, there are other ways we could use our magic. "Yellow, Red, Green, Grey, each of you take a leg. Use your magic to make it stick, but release when I try to move it. Got it?"

Of course we did. We saw Blue come up with the idea. And of the ideas we'd had so far, it didn't sound like a bad one.

 _Left foreleg, right hindleg, right foreleg, left hindleg, repeat..._

Slowly but steadily, we started climbing again. This time, now that we were able to stick to the wall rather than hang from it, pieces broke off less frequently, and usually only one leg at a time. It was slow going, but with every step, we closed the gap between us and the open sky. Each heave of our muscles lifted nearly five hundred tons of dragon further and further up.

It took us ten long, painstaking minutes to climb up to the next ledge big and strong enough to hold our bulk. The ledge was similar to the one we'd just left, save for the fact that there was an obvious path leading into another part of the cave system. It'd be a bit of a squeeze, but we figured we could fit down it, not that we'd planned to go down that path. Instead, we'd wanted to climb further up, but the same screeching roar came from the path, along with an irritating clanking sound.

' _You know? I don't think I want to sssee the dragonsss here anymore,'_ Green thought to us. There was an unspoken _but_ implicit in his tone.

' _ **BUT WE NOW NEED TO!'**_ Red reluctantly agreed.

Course set, we squeezed our way through the narrow gap. It wasn't far; the gap opened up into a wide, goblin-made chamber. And there, at the heart of the chamber, was a dragon.

Its scales were a dull grey-white, while its eyes were a pale, milky pink. Around its neck, digging into its skin, was a heavy, rusty, metal chain. And across its body, blood wept from festering, half-healed wounds.

Against the goblin with the noisemaker, the dragon recoiled in a very familiar way. We'd seen it on Dobby. We'd done that ourselves in fear of an angry Vernon.

 _Pain was coming_ , the dragon whimpered. _Pain was coming_ , screamed its body. _Pain was coming_ , howled its soul.

Suddenly, the death of a goblin didn't weigh down upon our heart nearly as much as it had. In fact, you could say it didn't bother us at all anymore. You could even go so far as to say that there was exactly one emotion we could feel at the moment:

 _ **COLD, CALCULATING RAGE!**_


	9. Reverberate

As much as we like to think of ourselves as individuals, we were not. We were one being with five perspectives, and sometimes, that worked to our advantage.

Hagrid once asked us how we coordinated ourselves. The truth is, we don't. We're always coordinated by default. It works like this:

Imagine a colorful light glowing in the center of our shared mindspace. This light is the will and memories of the singular collective — the sum total of the five of us. Whatever image this light projected was what we were thinking about. Now, imagine that this light was split by a prism, with differently colored versions of that image going to different heads. Each head saw a different version of the image, with some features highlighted or obscured by how the prism splits the colors. In each head, they adjusted the light with their lenses, their perspectives on life, focusing on different features. With their senses, they added more colors to the image they received, further refining it into something unique. And then, when all was said and done, we reflected the light back to where the prism merged our light into a single whole: the collective.

This happened instantly and continuously for every thought we had. Split, shape, add, reflect, mix, repeat. When we were trying to be individuals, we slacked on the mixing step, which resulted in mismatched images and distinct thoughts for the five of us. But when we're trying to unify, when action trumps individuality...

The plan appeared in our head almost instantly, created, modified, and reviewed by five different perspectives at the same time, but ultimately generated by one mind working in harmony with itself. At that moment, staring at the small, abused dragon, _we_ were almost an _I_ once again, and _I_ was furious.

One, we couldn't leave the dragon here. It deserved to be free of the pain.

Two, we needed out of the bank, but our secret was basically going up in flames as we spoke. If the dragon didn't burn the goblin and wizard with the noisemakers, they'd see us and our secret would only get out faster.

Three, there was no way out for us that didn't involve waiting or smashing through the building above us.

Four, whatever was going to happen here, _somebody_ would find out we existed.

And five, we smelled tasty treasure nearby. As much as we wanted it, the goblins would obviously be mad about us even being down here near it.

While _some_ of those things were a tad less important than others, we considered them all. The situation as a whole needed proper attention. So, despite our fury, we waited. The dragon may have been hurt, but that was no reason to charge in to free it. Humans and goblins were quite squishy, after all. If we charged in, we might just step on them, and then we'd have to lick the gore off our feet.

No, that would be troublesome.

We didn't have to wait long. The wizard and the goblin moved along, both very much unwilling to stay near a mere, single dragon very long. Facing the smaller dragon as they were, they hadn't noticed us yet. Instead, they shuffled sideways towards another stretch of track and another waiting minecart. We forced ourselves to wait until we were out of our considerable fireballing range.

As soon as they were out of sight, we moved. We closed in on the dragon, which recoiled at the sight of us and curled away defensively. It was a small, gangly thing, with arms and legs thinner and bonier than ours. While it was only three-fifths our size, it probably weighed a tenth as much, judging by how it moved. We could have smashed its bones easily.

Instead, we grabbed its head to lift it up and hold it still. Yellow and blue reached their necks under our arms and nipped at the chains around its neck with their teeth. The chain links broke away with ease.

Then we pulled back, giving the dragon space. It shuffled around a bit, experimenting with its sudden freedom. As the realization dawned on it, it looked up to the light far above. For a second, its gaze darted back to us. _Thanksss._

 _You're welcome,_ Green hissed back, before realizing that none of the rest of us could _directly_ understand what they'd just said — the rest of us had only heard untranslated parseltongue — and now finally understood how weird it sounded to everyone else. _Can you climb?_

The pale dragon's eyes shot back up, this time mapping a route to climb. _Yesss._ It trudged forwards, grabbing onto the rock face nearby. It started to climb, and though it was slow at first, as the dragon loosened up its muscles, its pace accelerated.

We started climbing as well, but as we noticed the broken cart track above us. If we'd fallen a little differently, we would have landed here. An idea came to us, born from that revelation; we climbed up a little higher, then launched ourselves off the wall. Our body crashed into the center of the stone circle the other dragon had been chained in, smashing the floor. We flailed a bit, cutting stone with claws and smashing the rock with our tail. From each of our heads, we breathed massive jets of white-hot flame, lightly liquefying the surface of small patches of stone and scorching the rest. Lastly, we shredded the chain that had held the other dragon.

It only took a few seconds to make it look like there'd been a fight, and to better sell the lie, we shot flames at each other, coating our scales in soot, and nipped at each other to scratch our scales. Sure, it was a last-minute idea, but if we'd _accidentally_ freed the dragon after falling right in front of where it slept and fighting a bit, that wouldn't look nearly as bad.

Green was a bit smug as we resumed our climb. Following the same trail that the pale dragon had taken, it didn't take much effort to catch up to it. Hell, at the slow pace it was climbing, we could have easily passed it.

We didn't, though. Our initial rage, having faded to a dull roar, slid to the back of our minds to make way for more practical thoughts. Namely, how the hell we were supposed to get out of here — both physically, if crashing through the building wasn't an option, and without violating the statute of secrecy. And unfortunately, we found the idea of simply waiting _down here_ for Dumbledore _undesirable._

An aside, one of the first things they taught us at Hogwarts was about the Statute of Secrecy, and more importantly, the common magics used to hide the existence of magic from muggles. They also taught us how to exploit said magics where they'd been put in place. Relevant to us and our current situation was the Haze — something we only just remembered the name of now even though we'd sort of been aware of from the beginning of this whole _dragon_ thing. Basically, it was a very subtle spell that covered the whole globe that made it harder for non-magical people to see flying objects that contained magic. The higher the magical source, be it object, person, or creature, the harder it was to see even if you were looking right at it — which compounded the visual difficulties imposed by distance.

The Haze had been why we'd dropped from the sky earlier today, rather than landing. But now that we were underground, _smack dab in the middle of London,_ the Haze wasn't going to help us in the slightest. Basically, that left us but two options: leave Gringotts and fly away, risking the statute, or leave Gringotts and wait in the alley for Dumbledore.

Option two sounded like a _great_ idea.

Hah, as if.

None of us were keen on waiting around and letting wizards take shots at us, especially not after the _other_ dragon came out and scared them to death first. And we're fairly certain that even though Green can talk to the dragon, he's nowhere near convincing enough to keep the dragon from flying off on its own.

And since _one_ dragon's already going to cause a mess, what more is a _second_ one going to do?

We climbed onwards, staying just behind the rescued dragon. We had to make it to the top, but we also needed our companion to emerge first — that way, it wouldn't be _our_ fault.

A familiar rolling and clanking sound caught our ears. We turned a few heads just in time to see a minecart with a goblin and a wizard on it. Yellow's eyes went wide, and in a panicked voice, he incanted, " _ARRESTO MOMENTUM!"_

The cart slowed, stopped, and then bounced back a little before coming to a full stop as if it had hit a giant sheet of rubber. The occupants tumbled forwards but thankfully didn't fall out of the cart.

The hooded wizard had his wand in his hand a second later and was aiming it right at us. We could smell the nervousness and adrenaline coming off him, a very animalistic fear, despite his seemingly calm demeanor. His goblin companion was much more visibly agitated at the sight of us.

"The track's out ahead. Don't fall to your death, okay?" Message delivered and lives saved, Yellow silently signaled for us to keep climbing. The other dragon hadn't gotten that much further ahead, so we quickly caught back up to it.

The light coming from above was growing brighter with every foot we climbed. And rather than slowing down with fatigue, our draconic companion was invigorated by the light at the end of the vertical tunnel, so to speak. It slowly picked up speed, climbing faster as it became surer of its footing. We matched pace.

In the back of our collective mind, we silently prayed that Dumbledore would be waiting there for us. Hopefully, he'd be there by the time we made it to the top.

* * *

Hedwig was a clever owl. She knew this, both from her own experience and the repeated compliments of her now quite numerous owners. But no amount of cleverness could help any owl track down a human that could move so swiftly and so erratically over long distances. The magic that had been cast on her as a owlet made that a non-issue. No, what made Hedwig so clever was what she could glean from what she could perceive, and that spell was much like any other sense.

That mystical sense of distance itched. Her masters had told her to first find Dumbledore if he came to the bank, and to wait for him there. Thus, her talons itched if she attempted to lift them off her perch and stopped itching if she stayed grounded. At the same time, the feathers on her forehead and between her wings on her back both itched as well, the former on a spot that always pointed towards Dumbledore and the latter with an intensity that she could translate to distance. Judging by how intently the spell was trying to urge her onwards, Dumbledore was still at Hogwarts, Hedwig divined.

She fluttered her wings irritably, drawing the annoyed gaze of a goblin below. The foul sneer he shot her way, on top of her own frustration, sorely tempted Hedwig to relieve herself upon her desk. She'd never do that — obviously, she was far too civilized a bird to do such a crass thing — but the idea nevertheless amused her and made the wait a little bit more bearable.

A super high-pitched shriek filled the air. Below, goblin ears twitched and gazes turned towards the hallway that lead to the minecarts. The humans in the bank didn't react to the sound, save for one scruffy, scarred man who clutched his ears in pain, but even they noticed the change in atmosphere.

The sound cut off a moment later, much to the snowy owl's relief. As she settled in to wait for Dumbledore, she suddenly noticed that the navigation spell was pulling her in a completely different direction and that her target was now _much_ closer. Hooting in relief, Hedwig spread her wings and dive-bombed the way her magic was guiding her.

Unfortunately, a closed door was all that remained between her and her masters' headmaster. With reckless abandon, she threw herself at the glass, scratching at it with her talons for as long as her momentum allowed, then righted herself before she could tumble to the floor. She swooped around and struck again, then a third time before the door finally opened.

Hedwig paid no heed to the goblin, flying right past him in order to land on old wizard's shoulders. She screeched urgently, though at a politely soft volume, directly into the man's ear.

"Hedwig?" Dumbledore remarked. "Did the boys send you?"

"Hoo!" she agreed. She nipped at his ear and tugged forwards, urging him to move.

"Are the boys down below?" Dumbledore asked.

Again, Hedwig hooted in agreement. And again, she urged him forwards.

"And I've already explained," the goblin grumbled, "you are not allowed in the caverns unless you have financial business with Gringotts Bank! The wards redirecting your apparition should have been hint enough!"

"A moment, Mr. Nagrak... Hedwig, how are they?"

Hedwig, being a rather clever owl, flared her wings, adjusted her body to expose the surprising length of her legs from under her feathers, craned her head back, and let out the deepest screech she could muster. Dumbledore, being a rather clever human, understood immediately. "Oh dear. _Expecto Patronum._ Boys, Hedwig told me of your situation. Stay where you are. And... five Amplifying Charms on Red should be sufficient to call out from any depth."

The phoenix patronus nodded once, then soared away on ethereal wings, passing through the walls as if they were nothing but air.

Dumbledore turned back to Nagrak. At a significantly more sedate speed, as if he weren't quite flustered, Dumbledore softly intoned, "My apologies, Mr. Nagrak. You see, one of my students is down in your caverns, and given his rather unique circumstances, I suspect that you'll see the fiscal necessity of escorting me down below to retrieve him soon enough. In fact..." Dumbledore held up five fingers, then lowered one.

Then a second.

Then a third.

Upon reaching the count of five, the earth shook. A voice boomed from everywhere at once. It had such an intensity that it drowned out everything else, made people's eyes go blurry, and deafened the ears to such an extent that it was more easily understood by the rattling of one's skull than the vibrations the eardrums.

"𝕎𝔼'ℝ𝔼 ℂ𝕆𝕄𝕀ℕ𝔾 𝕌ℙ **! 𝔸𝕃𝕃** _ **𝕊𝕀𝕏**_ **𝕆𝔽 𝕌𝕊!"**

Like a foghorn in an echo chamber, an analogy very near the truth, the sound reverberated on and on. As the sound bounced up and down the caverns below Gringotts, the bank shook again and again and again, each iteration blurring more and more into the next until it faded into a dull roar, then naught but the ringing of ears and a fading rumble that tickled the feet.

Out of the corner of her eye, Hedwig saw Dumbledore's mouth move but heard no sound. At least, not at first. A tap of his wand and _proper, reasonable_ sound returned, and with it, blissful quiet.

At least until the high-pitched alarms started again. If the language of owls included cussing, she would have at that moment.

"Note to self... experiment with less destructive applications of exponential self-cast spell-stacking," the professor muttered. He shook his head a little. Pointing his wand at the goblin, he restored his hearing. "I think, when my multi-ton, accidental-earthquake-inducing students are involved, _the survival of the bank building itself is an appropriate case of 'financial business,'_ wouldn't you agree?"

The goblin, already pale, nodded vigorously. The goblin, owl, and wizard promptly hurried from the office and into the chaos of the rest of the bank. Unbeknownst to the latter two, the same thought passed through their heads at exactly the same moment: who was the sixth?

* * *

"Ow ow ow! Let's never do that again!" Yellow hissed. None of us could hear a thing, but we didn't need sound to understand one another.

" _AGREED,"_ the rest of us said. Though we couldn't hear it, we could feel the rasp of Red's destroyed voice. We could also feel his vocal cords slowly knitting themselves back together, a distinctly alien sensation. We hoped Dumbledore got the message because that was one thing we wouldn't — and for the time being, _couldn't_ — try again.

The dragon above us had put on even more speed now that it too had recovered. No doubt it was just as eager to avoid being in the blast radius as we were unwilling to set off another sound bomb.

At least Professor Dumbledore was up there. That was one less thing to worry about, even if we were currently disobeying him by climbing up. While Blue and Yellow justified our disobedience with the argument that the other dragon might cause excessive damage if we didn't climb with it to keep it out of trouble, Red, Green, and Grey simply didn't care about that. They just wanted out of this hole.

Hopefully, nobody would get hurt by us releasing the other dragon. Now that we'd had a moment to calm down, we see that we may have been a bit rash. Don't get us wrong; we'd do it again in a heartbeat, the goblins still pissed us off, and we're not going to chain this dragon back up, but we do acknowledge that perhaps this wasn't the best idea.

Grey started rehearsing our lie. The rest of us kept climbing.

* * *

"Albus!"

"Professor Dumbledore!"

The two calls occurred almost simultaneously. The individuals seeking his attention glanced at each other as they converged on him and recognized one another. Bowing to Kingsley Shacklebolt's authority as an auror, Remus Lupin allowed the officer to speak first.

"What's going on here, Albus?" the auror inquired. "The bloody hell was that?"

"Perhaps the most potent _sonorous_ charm I have ever had the displeasure of experiencing," the headmaster replied. His wand was drawn and, to the other two men, he seemed inordinately focused on the grated floor before them. The goblins scurrying around them didn't seem to interest the old wizard in the slightest.

"A _sonorous_ charm? Albus, I saw goblins with blood flowing from their ears," Kingsley stated. "Maybe it was just a _sonorous,_ but I doubt the goblins are going to see it that way."

"Shack, you can't seriously be implying that...?" Remus questioned, only to trail off and glance meaningfully at his surroundings.

"I doubt it will come to _that,"_ Albus remarked, not breaking eye contact with the floor. If anything, his stare intensified. On his shoulder, the snowy owl picked up the same subtle sensations and fluttered her wings eagerly. "But, as it stands, I think we have a more pressing issue..."

He took a step back, then another, and then suddenly spun on a dime and broke out into a surprisingly panicked sprint. As he passed between Kingsley and Remus, Albus flicked his wand out to magically yank them back with him.

It was not a moment too soon. The floor shook, and then a massive, scaly, white head erupted through the grated floor. Cries of "Dragon!" echoed through the bank, but the beast's cacophony nearly drowned them all out.

Kingsley and Remus both snapped their wand-arms to attention and shuffled back, frantically trying to get away without turning their backs to the firebreather. The headmaster's reaction was, by contrast, far more subdued.

"A sixth, indeed." He too raised his wand to defend himself from the — comparatively small —Ukrainian ironbelly. Only, a hissing noise from below caused the dragon to pause, incline its head, and then gaze up to the skylight above. In an instant, it lost all interest in the edible people around it, its attention wholly focused on the sky. It let out a sound like a squawk, a hiss, and roar all at once. Its claws reached up, crashing through the glass.

Dumbledore flicked his wand, emitting a wave of force to protect the trio from falling debris. But beyond that, he made no move to stop the dragon, unlike Kingsley, who fired off an ineffective stunner at the dragon. Instead, the headmaster's gaze focused on the rain of debris still coming down while his magic warded people from injury.

Above them, the dragon paused for a moment, breathed deeply, and then spread its wings. With a thunderous clap of displaced air, the behemoth took to the sky.

"Kingsley, I do believe we're going to need the obliviators."

"And dragon tamers," Remus added.

"Tell me about it." Without another word, Kingsley Shacklebolt vanished with a crack.

"A dragon," Remus remarked after a moment's silence. "Not how I expected today to go. Glad I ran into you, Professor. It's good to see you."

"And you as well, _Professor_." Remus smiled at Albus's reminder of his new title. "But I'm afraid we're not quite done."

Remus followed Albus's gaze back to the hole. The sound of breaking rock and heavy breathing was the only warning they had before five heads, each one larger than the other dragon's, squeezed through the hole.

" _Professsssor Dumbledore! Hedwig! Brilliant!"_

* * *

The professor's eyes bored into each of us in turn before quickly moving to the next. It felt, for a moment, as if he were casting judgment upon us and had, one-by-one, deemed us a disappointment. A knot formed in our stomach, and in that instant, we wanted nothing more than to climb back down into the hole.

Then the moment was over and Professor Dumbledore was once more merely our headmaster. "Hello, boys." On his shoulder, Hedwig hooted her greeting as well.

"Sorry about all this. Our stone broke when-"

Dumbledore raised his hand, cutting off our explanation. "We can discuss what happened later, Yellow. For now, if you would allow me?" He held up his wand.

We, like all dragons and giants, had a layer of magic just inside our skin that reinforced our bodies. It's what let us fly, let us heft our mass around, and, most relevant to the situation at hand, gave us our magical resistance. But, that resistance was controlled by our magic and, indirectly, our intent. The form stoned had worked as well as it had because we were the ones activating it, implicitly giving it permission to affect us. Even Dumbledore, as powerful as he was, struggled to affect us when we actively resisted him.

Instead, we nodded, granting him permission to cast upon us. A wave of familiar energies, invisible yet not undetectable, rippled out of his wand and across our body. The spell snapped into place, only for us to drop as our suddenly much smaller body was too small to reach the ledge we'd been holding onto.

We flared our wings — which unexpectedly hadn't vanished with our transformation — and flapped back up to the now much larger hole. It was like flying through watery jelly; our much smaller and much weaker wings found the air almost thick. Each flap felt like ten normal ones and propelled us a fraction of the distance.

Imagine our surprise when we found Dumbledore standing with an outstretched hand, palm up, and discovered that we could fit inside said palm. We landed there, if for no other reason than the novelty of being that tiny.

"Sorry for the mess, Professor," Yellow squeaked. His voice came out quiet and absurdly high-pitched. Red snickered at that, only to clamp down on his mouth with our claws when his voice came out adorably squeaky as well.

"I'd say it is alright," Dumbledore remarked, even as he flicked his wand and set the debris to repairing itself, "but I feel that the goblins might disagree. Hedwig?"

Our owl hooted questioningly.

"Be a dear and take the boys back to Hogwarts for me, wouldn't you? I'd fly there without stopping if I were you."

In one smooth movement, Hedwig took wing and snagged our tiny body from the headmaster's hands. With our body no bigger than a mouse, Hedwig's talons gripped us terrifyingly tightly. For the first time in our life as a dragon, we flew under someone else's power.

Let us tell you, it's nowhere near as fun. In fact, it's not fun in the slightest.

We had just enough time to see the angry, spear-wielding goblins approaching Dumbledore before Hedwig carried us out of the bank. We hoped he'd be alright. We hoped we hadn't caused him too much trouble. But to be entirely honest, we doubted it, and that fact hurt more than our bleeding ears.


	10. Goblins

It wasn't until we were flying in Hedwig's talons that we noticed something odd. Being flyers ourselves, we were intimately familiar with geographical distances as seen from the air — both as a broom flyer and a winged one. But it wasn't until we gained our wings that we truly understood how fast — or slow, as the case may have been — owl mail was. Hedwig, when burdened by the weight of a package, could only fly about as fast as a car inside a city, and not as fast as they could go on the motorway. What's more, she had to stop every few hours to eat or drink just to survive the exertion of crossing significant distances. And as far as we were going, it wouldn't have surprised us if she were to fall asleep somewhere along the way.

But the fact that we made it back to Hogwarts before sunset? That _did_ surprise us. Interestingly, it was Dumbledore's explanation of Hogwarts's charms from the other night that clued us — mainly Blue — in on what was happening. That, and seeing so many owls flying together.

There were paths in the sky. We'd have never been able to find them without Hedwig's guidance, but once we were there, we could easily smell the magic. While in that airborn path, the ground below seemed to squish without really squishing, if that made any sense. Everything appeared the same as it always had, and yet everything seemed closer together in the direction we were moving. The wind wasn't any stronger than normal, so we doubted we were actually going any faster, but the ground sped below us with unnatural swiftness.

A part of us, though not any one head in particular, wished those sky paths didn't exist — at least not right now. A part of that part was shame. We couldn't have known about that waterfall, nor could we have predicted the spell breaking. And yet, we felt so foolish and reckless. It wasn't our normal brand of foolishness either; riding the minecart deeper wasn't brave or heroic, it was _only_ foolish. And now, we'd made a bloody mess for Dumbledore.

But the majority of us did want to get back to the castle, if only to take a quick dip in the lake, grab something to eat, and then fall asleep. Today had been a _long_ day, and honestly, despite the fact that the sun was still up, we were actually quite ready to curl up in the Chamber of Secrets and sleep.

And with the adrenaline of the day fading, our eyes were quickly getting heavy and our necks were droopy. Yellow mumbled to Hedwig, "Give us a squeeze when we get there, alright, girl?"

Hedwig hooted softly.

We were asleep a few minutes later. Our dreams were fitful, but quickly forgotten.

* * *

We awoke to find ourselves lying on a familiar wooden table — one that had, amusingly, already played host to a dragon of similar stature. Above us, Hagrid loomed more than he ever had when we were human, yet his eyes were as full of warm amusement as we'd ever seen them.

Off to the side, Hedwig paused her eating, a mouse tail hanging out of her beak. She jerked her head in Hagrid's direction. Only once she saw that we understood did she swallow the rest of the mouse. She half-spread her wings, sagged her body, and looked up, obviously blissed out by mousy goodness.

Hagrid sure knew how to make animals happy. We supposed that that was why Hedwig delivered us to him.

"Evening, boys." Hagrid chuckled deeply, yet softly. "Never thought I'd see you knee-high to a bowtruckle again."

" _It'sss a long ssstory,"_ Green muttered.

Stepping over to the area of his hut that served as his kitchen, Hagrid started — no, _resumed_ — tending to the hot pan. The fragrances of cooking meat and heated spices slowly tickled our noses, faintly making themselves known above the scents of the dried meat and spices he kept in his cupboard.

"There's hot water in the kettle. You lot think you can manage the tea at your size?"

Blue huffed. " _Yes,_ we can make the tea." To be clear, he was saying that yes, we were able to do so, but he went ahead and proved it by making the tea. Simple levitation proved a sufficiently dextrous replacement for human-sized hands. "Sugar? Cream?"

"One cube, Blue."

 _Plop._

 _Plop, plop, plop,_ went the second cup of tea. We stirred Hagrid's with the single teaspoon while our tail stirred ours. "How long were we asleep?"

The half-giant shrugged. "Didn't really pay attention. Not _too_ long." The movement of his tongs revealed his dish to be sausages. They smelled delicious, though all of his cooking did nowadays.

While we wouldn't say no if he offered some, and he probably would, we didn't ask for any.

"What's it like being small anyway? I always wondered."

Grey thought about quipping _you were a kid once_ , but then we remembered that we'd _seen_ Hagrid when he was our age thanks to Voldemort's diary and knew that he'd been taller than everyone at Hogwarts by at least a couple of feet since day one. He'd _never_ been small. "WE'LL TELL YOU AS SOON AS WE FIGURE IT OUT OURSELVES!" came Red's tiny, squeaky, and still somewhat pained voice.

Remembering that we had something of a remedy for that last bit, Red dunked his head in the half-giant-sized teacup and slurped away. While not as warm and bracing as fire, the drink did ease his pain. The rest of us tried not to laugh at him and how silly he looked, and Green _almost_ succeeded at it too. Of course, having seen it through our eyes as well, the stream of bubbles in the tea gave away Red's mirth.

We lapsed into silence after that. Yellow figured Hagrid thought it was a comfortable silence, if the man's relaxed expression was enough to go by, but for the rest of us, it was a silence born more of fatigue than anything. For that moment, the quiet left us feeling little at all.

Gray was the one who broke the silence. _"we messed up..."_

* * *

We didn't tell him that we believed a goblin had died. We carefully avoided even hinting at it. But we did tell him of the destruction we caused, and how much trouble we think we got Dumbledore in. Shame — actual, genuine shame — was not something that we were used to feeling.

Rage, at ourselves and at others, we knew as well as any other stressed-out thirteen-year-old-boy. But shame? For that, we needed someone whose opinion we actually cared about enough. Before this summer, not even Hagrid had been close enough to us to really let us feel this level of shame.

Red, Green, and Grey seethed inside us. They _despised_ the feeling, despised feeling weak and worthless and pathetic. Just this morning, when we'd awoken after we'd made a mess of ourselves on Hagrid, we thought we knew shame.

That was just embarrassment.

Blue and Yellow didn't like it either, but they continued our confession regardless of what the others thought. And in the end, it was probably for the best.

Hagrid scooped us up in his huge hands and held us close to him. "Harry, it'll be alright. Professor Dumbledore will get everything sorted out. I've known him since I was yer age, and I've never seen him get angry at anyone."

We curled up in his hands. They were slightly greasy and smelled of meat and spices, but they were also warm and his magic tickled our senses. It felt like being hugged all over.

' _He_ is _hugging us,'_ Yellow noted.

We're not sure which one of us thought it, but as we curled up and tucked our heads under our wing to hide the tears, we wondered if this was what it was like to have a parent that actually cared.

* * *

We didn't see Dumbledore again for three days. We smelled him in the castle, but his scent was weak, as if he were just spending the bare minimum amount of time at Hogwarts before leaving to do whatever it was that was keeping him occupied.

The first indication that something was seriously wrong came not from Dumbledore, but from Professor Flitwick. The man, who usually wore a smile everywhere he went, wasn't smiling. In his hands, he held a crushed copy of the _Daily Prophet._ It was obvious that the words within had made him upset, but about what, we didn't know.

We hoped our suspicions were wrong, though.

Pausing our morning feasting, we followed him to the teacher's table. Once more, we were human in form thanks to the very woman Flitwick was approaching. He set the paper down in front of her and muttered softly, "I'll have to speak to the headmaster about this. If this happens, I don't know if I'll be able to stay neutral _and_ stay here, as much as I'd want to."

She looked down at the headline, then slightly less down to look at the charms professor. "Filius, I..." McGonagall then glanced our way, noticing us watching them. "I think we should have this discussion at a later date."

Flitwick started to respond, then followed her gaze. "Oh, yes. After breakfast, Minerva?"

The witch gave a quick nod. Nodding back, Flitwick grabbed the paper off the table and scurried off with only a curt greeting in our general direction. He exited the great hall a moment later, leaving us alone without transfiguration professor.

"Was that something we should be concerned about?" Blue inquired.

Yellow seized our single, human mouth and added, "Professor Flitwick looked upset."

McGonagall pushed her glasses up her nose and sighed. "No, Potters, it's not. Please don't worry about Professor Flitwick." It was spoken as a command, not a request. A well-meaning command, sure, but we could tell she really wanted us to keep our noses out of his business.

Unfortunately for her, her own copy of the _Daily Prophet_ sat on the table in plain sight. It took a second to read it upside down, but by the time she'd followed our gaze and tucked the paper away, we'd already read the headline.

 **Ministry-Goblin Relations Deteriorate After Gringotts Dragon Escape.**

Four of us went, "Oh."

Blue muttered, "The one time I wish Binns _wasn't_ useful."

* * *

The sun wasn't bright these days. Well, it was, but it didn't feel like it. The dementors had arrived, and while we could barely feel them in the castle and couldn't sense them at all while in our chamber, out on the grounds, the world felt a little greyer.

Grey, the head, was the only one of us who didn't notice. He saw the effect inflicted upon us from an outside perspective, but he himself felt no more miserable than usual. It was nice, relatively speaking, that we only became 4/5 depressed when exposed to the outer edges of a Dementor's aura.

The reason we were outside, yet still within Hogwarts grounds and not flying away from the Dementors, was that McGonagall was finally ready to do her tests on us. We couldn't have any magic on us, which meant leaving our newly remade form stone aside. We may have still fit in the Great Hall and the Entrance Hall while untransformed, but the doors were getting a little tight. Plus, with how heavy we were now, our talons tended to scratch up the magically reinforced stone of the castle.

Spell after spell flew out of her wand at us. Sometimes, she'd smile and quickly jot something down in her notebook. Other times, she'd scowl and scratch something off. Occasionally, she'd coach us on a spell to perform on ourselves, and while we weren't sure what they all did, we had a guess.

Blue and Green, upon discussing it with each other, came to the conclusion that she was trying to understand how our body and magic interacted. More specifically, whether it was our body, our soul, or some external magic that had resulted in us having the shape we did, and what it would mean for us to change it.

McGonagall gave us an eight out of ten on our assessment. She promised to show us the letters that explained her methodology later, then went back to analyzing us. It was a little unusual for Professor McGonagall to not directly answer one of our questions, but she seemed anxious, so we didn't press the issue.

Eventually, she concluded, "It's a little worse than I'd hoped, but far better than I feared."

"Don't sugarcoat it, Professor. Will we ever be able to be human again?" Blue asked.

"Human _-ish_. The chances of you becoming completely human are small — not zero, but not likely either. I'm almost certain that all five of you will get stuck somewhere along the process, not completely human, but not completely dragon. How far you get depends on your personality, like any animagus transformation," she explained. The whole time, she'd been flipping through her notes as if confirming her words as she spoke.

" _When you sssay 'ssstuck,' what do you mean?'_ Green probed.

"I'll only be able to guide your animagus form so much before it solidifies, I think," McGonagall said, flipping through her notes yet again to confirm. "Yes... You'll still have two forms, one as you are and one a mix of human and dragon. A bit like this."

Suddenly, McGonagall shrank until she was barely two feet tall. Her head became a tabby cat's, a tail sprouted from under her similarly shrunken robes, and her hands became fuzzy. Despite that, she was still recognizably human in profile. It was like how Hermione had been with the bad polyjuice, only a more seamless mixing of cat and human traits. She curtsied once, then shot back up to her original size and form.

"Impressive!" Blue complimented. Having done some reading of our own on the animagus transformation, we knew that the magic tended to dislike being stopped in the middle; an animagus's magic wanted them one way or the other, but not both. "So we'll all be like that?"

"Thank you. And yes, you will. To answer your next question: I do mean that each of you will have a separate human form of your own that is some mix between human and dragon. There's still some degree of unpredictability, but that's true for the original transformation." She flipped her notebook closed. "Personally, I'm interested in how you'll manage to split apart and rejoin together. I'm confident it will be safe, but that doesn't mean it won't be interesting."

An unseasonably chilly and strangely lifeless wind chose that moment to sweep across the grounds. As it blew past us, a bit of color seemed to leech from the world, leaving everything a little duller than it had been before. We, including McGonagall but excluding Grey, shuddered. "Why don't we head inside now? I have what I need."

" **WE AGREE! THE DEMENTORS ARE... UNPLEASANT!"**

McGonagall snorted mirthfully. "Understatement of the century, Potter."

We summoned our form stone and draped it back around Yellow's neck. One _pop_ later, we strolled on human legs behind McGonagall as we retreated back to the warmer castle.

* * *

Our mood following the reveal that we _could_ get human-ish and, more importantly, _separate_ animagus forms lasted through the day. It dimmed slightly the next morning when McGonagall told us that the most unpleasant part of the process was the only part that hadn't been changed; starting at the end of the month, on the full moon, we'd have to wait for a whole month with a mandrake leaf in each of our mouths. We could charm it to stick and to resist fire without issue, but while the leaf itself would become flavorless after barely an hour, the charms wouldn't. We tried the spells just to see and wound up with a disgusting combination of mint and rotten eggs. The flame-freezing charm turned out to be the egg flavor, but that meant we'd either have to deal with the flavor or risk losing a month of progress if even one of us exhaled too hard.

Our mood dimmed further when we finally saw Dumbledore. He looked tired. _Very_ tired. Smaller, too, as if he filled less space with his presence. The deepest part of us all, Consensus, did not like it, although not for the reason our past self would have thought; to see him diminished, _tarnished,_ irritated us, as he should have been stronger.

Blue wondered where these thoughts were coming from. Yellow suggested we should start meditating to figure ourselves out before school started, just in case.

Our irritation was on top of the more normal reactions like shame, concern, and curiosity. We only noted the annoyance because it was the only emotion that hit us all equally. We made a note of it, but then moved onto more pressing matters.

"HEADMASTER!" Red bellowed, transfigured robes flapping as he sprinted over to the wizard. The rest of us followed behind. "WE DIDN'T MEAN TO DO THAT! WE'RE SORRY THAT WE MADE SUCH A MESS!" The rest of us, Grey included, nodded vigorously in agreement.

To our relief, Dumbledore didn't look angry — just incredibly weary. "Accidents happen, boys. I trust the lot of you together are wise enough to figure out what you did wrong yourselves? Five heads are better than one."

"we know." Grey didn't make eye contact as he spoke. "we did."

"And have you been kept abreast of what's going on?"

The headlines this morning were worse than yesterday. The bank had already been repaired — without curses being involved, a single wizard had fixed the bank with a handful of mending spells — but is doors had been locked since the bank had closed the afternoon we broke out. After a couple days without access to their money, the wizards and witches of the United Kingdom were getting impatient and demanding answers.

"Unfortunately," Blue remarked.

"While I have no doubt that the situation will be _eventually_ resolved," — though whether or not it would take suppressing another rebellion to solve remained unspoken — "We do have a slight problem," Dumbledore confessed.

"What problem? Can we help?" Yellow enquired.

Dumbledore shook his head. "The Hogwarts's primary finances are housed within Gringotts. These are the funds with which the school pays its staff and, more relevantly, purchases supplies."

It took a long second to connect the dots, but when we did, it felt like that time when Dudley had kicked us in the nads. No money meant that the frequent food purchases the house elves made to feed us wouldn't happen anymore. In short order, we'd literally eat through every last piece of food here. We'd literally eat through the last money Hogwarts would have until a goblin rebellion was averted or stopped — _and it was all our fault._

"Ssscalessss!" Green suddenly exclaimed. The rest of us immediately saw his logic. "You sssaid our ssscalesss were mithril. We've been sssaving the onesss we ssshed."

Dumbledore smiled warmly. "While your generosity is immensely appreciated, it doesn't solve our issue. The only creatures in the UK that can work mithril..."

"Are the goblins," Blue finished.

"BUGGER!"

"Can we sell them abroad?" Yellow pitched.

"probably not," Grey, of all of us, replied. By way of explanation, he chucked a memory at the rest of us — Uncle Vernon complaining to house party guests about customs and tariffs on imported metal. The implication: trying to move a metal as rare as mithril across the border and then trying to sell it would attract all kinds of unwanted attention from the government _and_ would cut into how much money we could make. And that was assuming we found a buyer.

"BUGGER!" Red repeated, a bit louder this time.

A five-way debate broke out in our minds, vocal speech discarded as we drew up then promptly discarded plan after plan. Within a minute, we'd settled on three basic outlines:

One, stay here and live of rocks and acromantula. Hagrid would not be happy, the acromantulas would not be happy, and we wouldn't be happy, having to hunt in a forest. But, we could do it.

Two, roam the countryside and hunt what we could. Again, this was doable and we already did it a little, but we couldn't hunt too much in one area. There just wasn't enough easily accessible game, and our hunting skills were... subpar. Nevermind the muggles that might see us.

Three, go with Charlie to the dragon reserve in Romania. On the surface, it sounded like the best idea. We'd brought the idea up with Ron and Charlie before when our fear was that we'd never be human again and were thinking about where we could live. We'd need to write some letters to check things, and we had to hope that nobody made the connection between us and the bank incident (which was unlikely), but it was perhaps the best option.

Best _long term_ option would be more accurate. The sheer distance between here and Romania made getting to and from there a potential nightmare. Realistically, we were stuck with options one or two, which both basically amounted to, "You can sleep at Hogwarts, but you're on your own for food."

Reluctantly, we said to the headmaster, "We can take care of ourselves for food. You can still have our scales, even if you can't sell them yet."

Sheer relief flashes through Dumbledore's eyes for the briefest of moments, before his normal, serene smile appeared for the first time today. "I had not wished to ask, but your help is greatly appreciated, Red, Blue, Yellow, Green, and Grey." He met each of our eyes as he said our names.

"we wouldn't have needed to help if we hadn't asked to go deeper into the caves..." Grey bitterly muttered.

"Grey, _none_ of you could have predicted that this would have happened. Yes, you took a risk, but not even I know all the protections Gringotts has, or how they would interact with spells on yourself. _I_ couldn't have predicted it."

"The papersss are sssaying that another goblin rebellion might happen. A major one thisss time." Green crossed his arms. "People will sssuffer becaussse of usss."

Dumbledore clasped his hands together, causing them to disappear into his voluminous robe sleeves. The animated stars on the purple cloth twinkled in a way that his eyes did not. "To be honest, if this does turn into a rebellion, it will be one a long time in the making. I trust Professor Binns has instilled at least a basic understanding of why the rebellions happen in the first place?"

"ITS THE ONLY THING HE EVER TALKS ABOUT!" Red grumbled.

"Then you also know there's one every few decades. It was simply bad luck that we happened to be the ones to set it off."

"We?" Yellow asked.

"Goblins can be just as irrational as wizards, you will find," the headmaster replied. One of his hands fell to his side while he raised the other up. Giving it a dismissive wave, Dumbledore added, "Allow this old man to bear this burden alone?"

Taking it as the conclusion of the conversation it was meant to be, we didn't pursue the topic. Yellow instead said, "Again, we're sorry, sir."

"Apology accepted, boys. Take care of yourselves for the next few days."


	11. The Young Lords

A/N: There were probably seven different versions of this chapter and I'm still not 100% happy with it, but here you go. Let me know your thoughts on this chapter.

* * *

Blue and Green held their heads up high. Not out of pride or anything like that, but because they were keeping the books they were reading above the gore the rest of us were making. A whole family of deer, stag, doe, and fawn, had fallen to our claws and teeth. And while Blue and Green wouldn't have minded eating, those parts of us were more interested in reading the tomes we'd borrowed from the library.

It had been five days since our talk with Dumbledore, and the first skirmishes of what looked to be a protracted goblin rebellion had started. According to the _Daily Prophet_ , because of our interaction with him as we climbed out, the Goblins blamed Dumbledore for our damage and the loss of the other dragon. The ministry, while they didn't blame Dumbledore directly, weren't at all happy with him either.

Thus, the choice to leave the school ended up being about more than just food. People were coming and going from the school all the time, and the last thing we wanted was for them to see our scaly hide flying there and back. And so, we packed up our stuff, gotten our trunk charmed unbreakable, expanded, and waterproof, and had left to go camping out in the Scottish wilds.

We'd discussed this with Dumbledore. It had been our idea, but since we could take care of ourselves for food and just about nothing could actually hurt us, he'd let us go with next to no fuss. He'd insisted that he should place some more potent tracking and monitoring charms on us, and their presence against out magic was a constant, mild comfort to us as well as the headmaster. He and _he alone_ knew where we were.

We hadn't just _left_ Hogwarts, though. What we hadn't brought with us, we'd stored safely down in the chamber of secrets. And, before we had left, we'd quickly raided the library for spells that could help us while we were out in the wilderness.

We'd not found much within our skill range, but we'd found three so far that proved useful. One was the muggle-repelling charm, which Blue had picked up really quickly. The next was a water-repelling charm to keep us dry from the morning dew; the water itself didn't bother us, but it made cleaning off the dirt and debris from us rolling in our sleep much easier. And lastly, there was the targeting charm.

As an inferior precursor to the summoning charm, it didn't bring objects to you; instead, it pointed your wand (or in our case, our tongues) to an object of your choice. Easily thwarted by even minimal magical defenses, it wasn't terribly practical in the modern wizarding world. Out in the wild, though, it made hunting trivial. We just had to want large animals, scrap metal that nobody would miss, or the like, and our magic yanked us towards the food.

We weren't perfect at it yet. We'd only found the spell the day before yesterday in our pile of borrowed books. And yet, our stomachs were almost full to bursting with scrap iron and deer meat. With how successful at gathering food we'd been, we wondered if we'd even need Hogwarts to feed us anymore. We're sure the Hogwarts vaults would be happy about that.

Yellow paused his eating to pick some bone fragments out of his teeth. He wondered if we should venture back to Diagon Alley. We did have our money from our vault, and we did need to go shopping pretty soon before the term started. September 1st was approaching quickly.

Red was, unsurprisingly, all for that idea, despite being _literally_ one of the people who'd turned the alley into the border of an _active combat zone._ Well, active might have been a bit of an overstatement — the only people reported as being hurt (and not even killed) were a trio of ministry officials that had tried and failed to defuse the situation.

Blue just wanted more books. Green warned against going anywhere near the bank, but otherwise didn't object. Grey _did_ want to waltz right up to the bank and poke our heads in; "morbid curiosity," he explained, although we all could tell that that explanation was only part of his feelings. What the rest were, we couldn't yet put into words, but for once, only Yellow objected to them.

"I can't believe I have to be the voice of reason on this. That's Blue's job." Our empathetic brother sighed. "We should _not_ go poking the hornet's nest."

Green was the first swayed by reason. He swallowed his hunk of venison and then spoke, _"Yellow isss right. We'd be bloody fools to mess around with it."_

" **I'M BRAVE, NOT FOOLISH!"** Red bellowed. His voice was still a little rougher than usual from the bank incident. He didn't say more on the matter, but we understood.

Grey slurped up the doe's intestines. In the back of our mind, he gave a mental shrug. He, and thus we, knew that the idea of deliberately antagonizing the goblins was a bad one in the first place, and wasn't bothered by being outvoted. He resigned himself to satisfying his curiosity with us simply being on the same street as the bank.

From our bag, Blue pulled a little of the scrap metal we'd saved from an abandoned tractor we'd eaten earlier that morning. He nibbled on it a bit after enlarging it, taking tiny tastes and savoring the flavor. His eyes continued reading, his mind only passively aware of our ongoing discussion. With no objections, he hadn't bothered to speak up.

With that, our plan for the day was set.

* * *

Having found the owl sky-lanes again, with Hedwig's help, our trip to London was very swift, taking an hour rather than a day. Having tested our muggle-repelling charm in a small Scottish village north of Glasgow while hunting, we were more confident in landing publicly. So, rather than skydiving in, we glided down to very nearly the rooftops of buildings and then transformed just before striking them. We plopped to the ground in an alleyway, dusted ourselves off, and then made our way to Diagon Alley.

It was clear that the alley had seen better days. The very few people that were still there were nervously hurrying about, obviously not wanting to linger more than they had to, and almost universally had their wands drawn. Then there were armored and heavily armed goblins by the dozen outside Gringotts, and while none crossed some invisible threshold, they raised their blades and visibly threatened anyone who approached the bank directly.

We kept our head down and swallowed our guilt.

As we reached the tail end of a thankfully uneventful shopping trip, including the agonizingly slow purchase of _five_ new wands, we briefly considered trying to visit Hermione's place again. This time, we also considered sending Hedwig ahead of us to check before we caught the Knight Bus. Ultimately, however, we decided against it. The whole goblin fiasco was still fresh on our minds, and between that and the general awkwardness of just dropping in unannounced, Grey's pessimism won out.

School was right around the corner, anyway. We'd see our best mates soon enough.

Instead, we decided to kill a little more time while we were in the city. Lacking muggle money and not willing to venture anywhere near Gringotts, the five of couldn't do much in the Muggle world. Instead, we decided that since we were done with our practical shopping, we'd just explore the area.

For our first stop, we bought a couple dozen sandwiches at the Leaky Cauldron for a light snack (much to Tom's amazement). The flight, while our fastest time yet, had still been long and we were hungry again. While eating at the pub, we simply watched and listened to the people around us. We found it relaxing to just eat silently with our thoughts.

By the fourth time Tom came back with more sandwiches (each a full meal in their own right), he asked, "Where the blazes are you keepin' it all, lad?"

We swallowed the latest bite. "Got an appetite bigger than an Ironbelly Dragon," was our entirely honest collective reply, although Yellow tweaked it to sound like a joke.

"Oi, Tom," one of the wizards a few seats down hollered. He'd been watching us eat, as had several other witches and wizards in the pub. "Weren't you thninkin' o' makin' one of them muggle eatin' challenges?" The wizard slammed his pint down. "Call it Potter's Ironbelly challenge!"

A witch on the other end of the bar whooped happily. "Gotta tell sissy 'bout this. She's been awfully hungry ever since I dared her to eat that bag of holding, you know? It'd be just her kind of challenge."

Other wizards and witches at the bar broke out in excited chatter. Apparently, the idea was quite popular — or at least, it was something fun for them to think about given the otherwise uneasy circumstances. It took the barkeep a moment to quiet the small crowd down, but once he did, Tom gestured to us. "I suppose I must. Harry, you mind if I name it after you?"

"YES!" Red bellowed before the rest of us could restrain him.

"I mean, sure. Go for it," Yellow appended.

In total agreement with Green and Red, Grey imitated Yellow's way of speaking and continued, only switching our pronoun usage. "But you're going to have to let me try my hand at it too. I'm pretty sure I could—"

A small belch chose that moment to work its way up from our belly — and not from our _food_ stomach. A small flame and a shower of metal sparks escaped our lips, giving us the aftertaste of that tractor we'd eaten a little while back.

"—eat a dragon these days," Grey finished.

Tom, along with several other pub patrons, chuckled. "You sure you haven't already?"

We just took another bite of our latest sandwich, grinning.

The attention of the crowd faded from us shortly after that, but internally, our attention was still focused on Grey. _"You planned that, didn't you?'_ Yellow mused.

Grey felt mildly proud but otherwise didn't reply. Somehow, he had, and we all knew it.

* * *

Having spent a rather concerning amount of coin eating at the Leaky Cauldron, and then eating a few more knuts directly, we set out to properly explore wizarding London. To our delight, Diagon Alley wasn't the only wizarding street in the area. Horizont, Vertic, and Diurn Alleys — along with Knockturn — collectively encircled a large area of purely magical London. And, in the middle of it all, was Carkitt Market. Plus, aside from Diagon, none of the others were nearly as affected by the issue with Gringotts. It was quiet, but not nearly as tense of an atmosphere.

Vertic and Diurn Alleys were the first we visited. And while they were beautiful, sunny, wide-open streets, they were also more clearly residential, with apartments atop shops that sold more mundane things, like clothes and groceries. Having no idea where we wanted to live when we grew up, we filed those two streets away in the back of our minds as possible options. That depended on us being able to stay human for a long enough time; but as much as we liked the idea of becoming human again, we were also really liking being a five-headed dragon. Even Grey, the miserable lump, was warming up to it.

Horizont Alley and Carkitt Market were like extensions of Diagon Alley. The stores were similar enough, but had a few things Diagon didn't. For instance, in Horizont Alley, there was a shop called Pilliwinkle's Playthings, a toy store. We'd never actually been in a toy store before, and so we'd figured now was as good a time as any.

The sheer amount of colors and patterns nearly overwhelmed us. In contrast to the dull forests we'd been sleeping in the last few days, and even in contrast to the alley just outside, Pilliwinkle's was an explosion of color and light.

The smells were amazing too. There was so much magic here that we were practically drooling at the thought of all of these toys. We wanted to play with them and eat them like candy. We wanted to be little kids!

' _It's a shame,'_ Yellow suddenly thought as our shared eyes wandered over the mountains of toys. _'I can suddenly understand Dudley's greediness so much more.'_ Inside our minds, Blue and Green imagined themselves nodding in agreement.

Grey, however, sulked. _'it's vernon and petunia's fault.'_

' **WE'RE NOT WITH THEM RIGHT NOW! WE COULD BUY SOME TOYS IF WE WANTED!'** Red roared into our skulls. Despite the obviousness of Red's derail attempt, Grey let his train of thought crash and burn.

Barely an instant later, our collective had unanimously decided that we wanted toys, heedless of any comparison to the lump of lard that was our cousin. The problem, as Green pointed out, was, _'We ssshouldn't ssspend too much money. With the bank closssed, we can't get more.'_

That may have dampened the mood a little bit, but it hadn't killed it. We hurried about the store, looking at box after box of toys and trinkets, puppets and plushies, and all sorts of knick-knacks. Eventually, we found what we wanted.

It was a plushie dragon, animated to walk around, flap its wings, and breathe cloth "fire" on whatever it wanted. But what really sold us on it was its striking resemblance to Green; it could have been modeled after him! And so Little-Green, our honorary sixth head, went into our bag.

* * *

We didn't know why we walked into Knockturn Alley. We weren't thinking.

That was a lie, of course. If anyone asked, that was what Grey would tell them. But in truth, we were always thinking and were always aware of what we were thinking. When we had five different people with five different personalities all looking at each other's thoughts, we knew well before we walked into that place why we were doing it.

It _smelled_ good.

We'd been able to taste and smell magic since we'd transformed. Every spell had its own flavor and scent, but none were as appealing as dark magic. It was of the same delicious quality as fancy chocolate or skillfully-cooked steak, but it was a flavor we had no words to describe it with other than mouthwatering. In comparison to the toy store, this dark place was far more delicious-smelling.

We were under no delusions, though. This was a dangerous part of the city, even for someone as dangerous as us. Plus, we were unlikely to find something to actually eat unless we paid for it. At this point, after all we'd spent already, our purse strings were tied shut. But, even if we couldn't buy a bite to eat, we could still explore.

We were being stupid. We _knew_ we were being stupid. And if Ron or Hermione ever knew, they'd yell at us for being stupid for such a shallow reason.

We proceeded with being stupid anyway.

As we approached the alley, Green muttered a spell. The shell of magic rippled as he transfigured it into a new form. Unlike the difficulty of true human transfiguration, temporarily altering the shell that made us look human was much easier, once you knew the trick to not popping it. Even Crabbe and Goyle could probably do it.

The form we adopted was that of a teenager a few years older and a few inches taller. Minus the scar and with blue eyes and combed, blond hair, our face could have passed as Dudley's slim older brother.

Once inside the alleyway, the dark magic clung to us like a thick miasma. The sky above was unusually greyed out, as if even color was being choked away from it. Were we still human, the atmosphere would have been overwhelming, like a foul stench that seemed determined to make you smell it.

Now, though, it was like the air was trying to intimidate us by threatening to feed us food — and not even poisoned or spoiled food at that. We licked our lips. Greed and gluttony writhed within us, their metaphorical maws snapping at everyone and everything we saw. Couldn't we just pig out here, we wondered? No, of course not, but daydreaming was part of the reason we were here.

There were people milling about, including obviously unsavory types. We knew we were the last to judge a book by its cover, but there was a woman we passed with a necklace of human finger bones. It was just a tad difficult to call _that_ wholesome.

As we looked and, more importantly, _smelled_ about, we slowly realized that very few of the people here were human. Oh, sure, _most_ of them were _mostly_ human, but not all and not all the way. Men with goat horns, woman with snake skin, an old man who smelled far too strongly of the sea, and a little girl that smelled pungently of something ancient and powerful walking next to a man who smelled of unicorns, dark magic, and musk — they were some of the people we remembered the most, and yet countless more wandered the alley.

Not all of them smelled dark either, at least not by how we'd come to associate the scents. Some were neutral, or even light, but were instead also not human. In fact, _only_ the full-blooded humans that passed us by seemed to exude a _pure_ miasma of delicious darkness; everyone else was a much more complex mix in scents, both in magic and in blood.

We'd never smelled such variety before. Yellow and Red wondered why. Blue, Green, and Grey, pooling their thoughts together, came up with a plausible explanation.

Malfoy.

Well, _Lucius_ Malfoy and his ilk, not his prat of a son. While he might have been the first example we thought of, he was a good one. He and his son were pure-blooded bigots, supporters of Voldemort, and were influential in the Ministry. And, most importantly, they were the sort to skulk around in Knockturn Alley to sell off dark artifacts. He'd definitely be the sort of person to use his influence to confine the less "pure" to a dank, dark alley full of shady stores and shadier characters.

We didn't know if we were right, but it felt as if we were on the right track. We resolved to research it later; now that we were thinking about it, Green realized we had frighteningly little understanding of the laws that applied to us, or of wizarding law in general. We set the thought aside for now, but resolved to research it over the next school year.

Our willpower being a little weaker than we'd anticipated, our resolve broke and we eventually wound up dipping into a pub in order to grab another bite to eat. To our surprise, this place was, _somehow_ , even more dark and grimy than the Leaky Cauldron. The walls were blacked with slime, the windows were nearly opaque, the air was dank with musty scents, and the magic in the air threatened to choke us, even with its pleasant scent.

The food, by contrast, was quite good.

In the time it took us to eat the tiny, human-sized portion of surprisingly good bangers and mash, we'd deduced that the place we'd stepped into didn't exactly cater to humans all that frequently. We wagered by the smell of the place that no pure human had stepped into this place for weeks. And yet, the pub was packed and the people were lively — perhaps even more than outside.

"Oh my, you're a new face. And not a bad-looking one either, handsome."

We glanced to the side. Sitting in the formerly empty chair to our left and leaning towards us with a rather flirtatious grin was a woman with a distinctly reptilian face. A line of small spikes made up her eyebrows, while her "hair" was a neat bed of colorful feathers. Her skin was made of countless tiny scales that were about the color of a Mediterranean tan, but with a pink sheen when the light caught them right. She was _quite_ pretty.

Without really thinking about it, Yellow and Grey took joint control over our mouth. "New in more ways than one. Hah..."

She leaned in a bit closer, giving us a look down her _ample_ cleavage. Her forked tongue flicked out, tasting the air. "Oh? How so?"

"I've been practicing my transfiguration. I'm a tad big, you see..."

Meanwhile, Blue groaned internally. _'Ugh. You're_ flirting _. I thought_ they _were the hormonal ones.'_ He mentally jabbed a talon in Green and Red's direction, both of whom were quite enthralled by the kobold-like woman. If they'd been in charge of our human mouth at that moment, we'd have been drooling.

' _her pheromones are laced with magic,'_ Grey remarked, his voice unusually upbeat.

' _We're playing along,'_ Yellow added, grinning.

This seemed to break Green out of his entrancement, though Red was still totally enthralled. Suddenly suspicious, he dove into our senses with an analytical mindset. And though he didn't find anything immediately, his hyper-awareness brought the kobold-like woman into sharper focus.

All of this happened within the span of a second, and Grey and Yellow didn't miss a beat when she spoke next.

"I like big," she replied. Her fingers brushed against ours. "How big are you talking?"

"Hmm... I suppose I have been compared to a _basilisk_ before," Grey answered, giving the _technical_ truth. The rest of us blushed deeply, and seeing this, he went for embarrassment suicide. "It's quite petrifying." The mental gymnastics he went through to come up with that line and deliver it were quite remarkable, but the rest of us felt as if we'd just been stabbed through the gut with how hard we cringed.

Unaware of our inner turmoil, her hand moved down to our thigh. "Oh, really? That's a rather _bold_ boast." Her hand slid closer to our groin. "I wonder if you can back it up," she husked.

Her left hand slid down and in. She gave us a squeeze.

Truth be told, we knew _academically_ that she shouldn't have been doing that. But, as far as our actual feelings went, our thoughts were like this:

Blue was academically amused; this was quite the novel experience and he understood that she'd assumed we were an adult, but he didn't take any physical pleasure from her touch. Red, by contrast, was a hair's breadth from melting into a lustful puddle of teenage hormones as his imagination ran wild. Yellow felt quite good, almost to the point of being cocky, as his previous embarrassment faded. Grey, while still negative overall, was content — mostly about his "victory" at our expense rather than the actual, tactile results of his words.

Only Green disagreed with us, and _not_ because he disliked being molested by a grown woman. Quite the opposite, actually. But, as much as he liked what her hand was doing, he disliked what her _other_ hand was doing even more.

"Care to—GAH!" she cried out as both of our hands suddenly grabbed both of hers, forcing them up and away. Dangling from her right hand was our coin pouch, cut from its string by a small blade stuck to her thumb. We weren't too worried about the blade; it was the money we cared for.

" _Petty thievesss ssshould leave treasssures that aren't theirsss alone,"_ Green hissed. He, in full control of our arms, squeezed hard enough that the woman's bones audibly protested. She herself was dead silent though, and in the reflections in her terrified eyes, we could see the glow of our fire in the back of our human body's throat.

In one move, Green plucked our pouch back and released both of her hands.

She bolted, vanishing into the crowd within a second.

We tucked the coin pouch deep into our robes. Then, as if nothing had happened, we resumed eating, though Green watched her closely out of the corner of our eyes. Pervert and thief she may have been, but we had food to eat.

While Consensus drove our body to mechanically eat, we were left to processed what in Merlin's name had just happened. We'd guessed she was acting, and we'd been playing along, but the confirmation of it and the failed thievery both stung anyway. Only Green was truly annoyed; the rest were just confused.

The rest of the pubgoers hadn't even noticed, or if they did, they didn't care. We got the suspicion that scenes like that were rather common here. Finishing our latest meal as if nothing had happened, we settled our tab and headed back out.

* * *

Though much warier, a little confused, and a bit annoyed still, we continued our exploration of Knockturn alley. We figured we might as well get our mind off it for now.

Despite being a street in a rather orderly area of London, the alley curved and wound like a coiled serpent. We were sure at one point it had entirely doubled back and crossed over itself, but there was never an intersection and all the buildings were still new. And yet, when we looked back over our shoulder, we could always _just barely_ see the intersection with Diagon Alley. It was never at an angle suitable for a good look, but it was there.

We weren't sure why that was, but we had our suspicions.

Still, magically winding and lengthy as Knockturn may have been, it gave us time to think and sort our feelings. It also gave us time to get hungry again, not that we'd ever been full since this morning. But, even more guarded with our dwindling money, than before, our dreams of more food were resigned to stay as just that: dreams.

Suddenly, a bony hand shot out and snagged our wrist, jerking us to the side and snapping us from our thoughts. The woman, no, the hag, grinned at us with crooked teeth. _'If it weren't for her smell,'_ Blue mused academically, _'I really would have sworn she was just an ugly witch.'_

"Spare a few coins, dearie?" She asked.

Of the five of us, Blue was the one with the current majority our bodily control. We were here to learn and explore, so we'd handed control to him, with the condition that the others were ready to take charge if something went wrong _yet again_. It was Grey who snatched back control.

"I'm sorry," he spoke, mimicking a mix of Yellow and Green's tones. The hag froze as we spoke, unable to break eye contact. "I'm hungry too, and my coin pouch is distressingly light today."

A flicker of something obviously magical passed between us and the hag, but it was too fleeting for us to be sure of what that feeling was exactly. A subtle shift in the scents in the air gave us a clue; it wasn't a new scent, but rather a sudden lack of a scent. Something had been _undone_.

All of that took time to describe, but in truth, we noticed this only in the brief between the moment Grey finished speaking and when she reacted.

The hag's grip released and her arm jerked back. "My apologies, my lords." She took a step back, then tried to take another, only to back against the slimy brick of the alley wall.

 _Lords?_ What did she mean by that?

"I'm no _lord_." Grey's tone was dismissive, but he placed extra emphasis on the last word.

' _Are you trying to hint at what we are?!'_ Green hissed internally. We'd already risked our nature once today. Almost exactly as he thought, the hag flinched. We noticed that easily; it was a particularly pronounced full-body flinch.

Her expression darkened. "Teeth of swords, savage fire, many eyes with voracious desire," muttered the hag softly, such that only we could hear. Wariness tinged her tone. "More than law can make a lord, say the wyrms atop their hoards." And then, without another word, she bolted towards Diagon Alley with surprising swiftness, vanishing into the crowd before we had time to react.

Some of that crowd was looking at us, eyes even more suspicious than normal. We decided it was now time to get out of there, and quickly.

* * *

We hadn't run, but that was surely the fastest we'd ever walked. Only once we were back out in Diagon Alley proper did we stop to really process what the bloody hell had just happened.

Blue, Yellow, and Green all reached the same conclusion at almost exactly the same time. _'She knew we're a dragon,'_ Blue stated.

' _And ssshe knew there are more than one of usss in here. You sssaw her react,'_ Green added.

' _We do not know that for sure,'_ Yellow retorted. _' Could be a coincidence, but I'd also consider it a safe bet.'_

' _ **BUT HOW DID SHE KNOW?!'**_

For that, we had no answer, though smell was a plausible candidate since we did the same to everyone else. Once term started, Blue and Green would definitely research it. But, for now, we agreed it was definitely time to leave London. The fewer people that knew about us, the fewer could connect us to the Gringotts incident, and we'd gotten lucky twice today. Our luck probably wouldn't let us get away a third time.

Going to Knockturn Alley really had been a stupid idea, we reaffirmed to ourselves, though not for the reason we'd first thought.

* * *

By the time we got back to the northern end of Scotland, it was well beyond sundown. Hedwig had perched in a crook of our necks as usual and guided us home. Between the shortcuts of the owl sky-lanes and our frequent trips down the length of the United Kingdom, our wings had grown strong. Only a gentle, warm ache filled our shoulders by the time we returned to our campground, a polite request to descend soon rather than an agonizing need to land and rest. It meant we had enough strength to find dinner for ourselves, especially after the short rest we took to stash our newly acquired stuff away.

With the aid of the targeting charm, we soon had our dinner: a lone doe that had wandered too far from the others. We laid down and began to eat, all except for Green. He pulled off the doe's head and held it up to himself.

" _A lord of what?"_ Green spontaneously asked, his mind wandering back. The disembodied head didn't answer.

" _the hag was probably just trying to get us to not eat her,"_ Grey replied, despite the question not being posed to him. He paused to work a shard of bone out from between his teeth. The shard popped free and he laid down upon the ground. _"not like we're_ actually _lords of anything."_

Blue swallowed. "She kind of implied it, but you could argue that we're the lords of dragons, by virtue of being as smart as five people instead of almost as smart as one." He ripped off another chunk for himself with our claws. "Or by mass alone. Don't we out-mass an Ironbelly by an order of magnitude now?"

" **WE ARE ALSO MADE OF PRECIOUS METALS!"** Red boasted. Despite his eternal enthusiasm, he took care not to move his head too much, lest the green plushie balanced on his snout fall to the dirt. **"THAT IS PRETTY LORDLY, I THINK! IT FITS THE 'HOARD' THING TOO!"**

" _empty title. useless. boy-who-live-to-become-the-lord-of-dragons. just beasts. just another way for wizards to turn on us,"_ came Grey's dark mutterings; with the excitement of the day over, he'd spiraled back into the darkest pits of our shared minds. He had a point, though. Our fame probably worked against us when the school found out about our parseltongue. Claiming to be the lord of anything, even if it seemed like a reasonable conclusion on the surface, was probably a waste of time _at best_ — and a way to invite all sorts of trouble at worst. Dragons _especially_ were not the best thing to claim to be a lord of, if we were being honest. A king of monsters would be just another beast to most wizards.

Green popped the deer's head into his mouth, biting into brain matter with a satisfying crunch, the discussion now just as dead as it. The rest of the deer carcass didn't last long, despite us eating slowly to savor its flavors. It had been quite an impressive specimen when it had been alive, and it tasted just as good.

High above, the stars twinkled and the crescent moon shone. The occasional owl hooted, including Hedwig after her own successful hunt. A gentle breeze blew through the trees, bringing to us the scents of the forest and the faintest hints of human settlement.

There was nothing special about this spot. There was nothing magical. It was only the arbitrary location where a five-headed dragon caught and ate their prey — it wasn't even our camp. There was no ministry, no laws, no school, no people, no perverted kobold pickpockets, no creepy hags, no lordships and politics, and no _boy-who-lived_ nonsense. It was just five brothers, our lovely owl, our new plush companion, and our dinners, all alone together under the stars.

Right then, that was magic enough for us.


End file.
